


When The World Was At War (we just kept dancing)

by PeachyKeener



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Basically, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Everyone, Bisexual Peter Parker, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Deaf Harley Keener, Depressed Harley Keener, Except Harley hes gay, F/M, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, I WROTE SMUT, Jewish Peter Parker, Like, M/M, Precious Peter Parker, Superheros, The stucky is uhhh strong with this one, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark is Good With Kids, but the wwii gang likes him and thinks hes neat, fuck off, ha, he seems like a good dad in the first chapter, hes not, i have a lot of feelings about this, i said crack head rights, is this a wwii au?, like hes a horrible father, mentions of some of the unethical things the US did during world war ii, not bi, pan tony stark, really really soft, really strong, teaming with the mafia, thats right, the end of this chapter is so so stucky, the last chapter has really soft smut, yeah - Freeform, yes this is based on a lana del rey song
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-06-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:02:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 40,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23175883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyKeener/pseuds/PeachyKeener
Summary: Just as quickly as the joy entered the boy, every part of him went tense and dropped down. He looked at Peter, “Please tell me you did not just say 1942?”“Uh- yeah? It’s 1942?”“Fuck- fuck- fuck-“ the boy glanced around the other in the camp and balked, “Fuck- you guys are the fucking Avengers.”Steve stepped forward, “Son, are you alright? You don’t seem alright.”“Fuck off, Rogers,” The boy- who swore worse than anyone Peter had ever heard talk- growled, “I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to my year so I can prove to Tony that I time traveled and that I deserve a suit.”_accidental time travel fic. Choas ensues.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Thor, Harley Keener & Shuri, Harley Keener & Tony Stark, Harley Keener/Peter Parker, Harry Osborn/Flash Thompson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Peggy Carter, James "Bucky" Barnes/Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Rhodey" Rhodes/Tony Stark, Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Peter Parker & Avengers Team, Peter Parker & Steve Rogers
Comments: 132
Kudos: 455





	1. boys (don't forget your toys)

**Author's Note:**

> hh shout out to everyone who helped me beta read for this
> 
> Im v nervous and this is v bad

New York City, 2019

  
  


“The first one to be created was Steve Rogers. Of course- you already knew that. Rogers was created on purpose- the only one of his kind. The ones that would follow were all accidents. He was chosen for his heart and mind. Good. Strong-willed. My father always said he was the best man he ever worked with. Aunt Peggy- the woman who would’ve married him if he had survived- always said he was the dumbest.

“The second to be created was Bruce Banner. A scientist. He worked with my father, on experimentation with gamma-ray growth, trying to replicate Doctor Erskine’s serum without all the bells and whistles. The result was Banner’s alter ego, the Hulk. After the war ended, Banner and Thor went to Asgard in an attempt to protect the people of earth from otherworldly events. They’re part of the reason we’re doing this. 

“The third was Peter Parker. A skinny asthmatic scientist from Queens, who interned with Erskine. Freshly 18 when all of this happened to him. He’s most well-known for not being a direct result of the serum, but one of the test subjects of the serum. A spider- one that they used to test the ability for a creature to live under the conditions of the serum- bit him. Thus, Spider-Man was born. 

“These three are the only super soldiers ever effectively utilized in history, and they stand as a symbol of what we could learn. Their team- the Avengers- stood as a beacon of strength and hope for America.” Tony paused, “Harley. Harley!” 

Harley startled awake, “Yessir?” 

“You know, I give you these lessons to prepare you.” 

“That’s funny,” He rolled his eyes at his mentor, stretching as he did, “I thought you did it to relive your father’s dream.” 

Tony sighed, and Harley got the feeling that if he said more he’d piss Tony off, “Harley. I’m not doing this because of my father. I’m doing this because we need the Avengers.” 

“The two super soldiers lost to time? As if. They’re dead, Tony.” 

“You and I both know they’re not. Super soldiers like that don’t just die.” 

Harley sighed, “Peter Benjamin Parker and Steven Grant Rogers died from crashing into icy waters to save the world.” 

“They’re alive Harley. I’m going to find them.” 

“Good luck with that,” Harley stood up, stretching more and meeting Tony’s eye, “No seriously. Good luck. I’m just not doing it. I don’t really wanna be frozen for six whole days while you search for two dead guys.” 

Tony gave him a nasty look, “Fine. But you're making the time machine.” 

“What?” He groaned, narrowing his eyes, “Tony that’s bullshit! I’m not gonna be able to make it.” 

“You can, and you will. If you don’t want to come on my expedition, you’re getting put to work a different way.” 

“But the time machine-“ 

“Is totally doable,” Tony shut him down with a hard look, not leaving any room for debate, “So instead of whining about something that _I_ think is a fair deal, you should start using that intelligence of yours to actually make it.” 

Harley huffed, taking the cue and dropping the argument of the time machine, “You know, when you first took me on as a protege I thought I would be doing more Iron Man stuff.” 

“You’ll get there,” Tony clasped his shoulder, leading him away from the workshop, “You need to earn your stripes and your keep first. You’re only seventeen, Harley. You’re a kid. You don’t need a suit yet.” 

“I am not a kid,” He shrugged off Tony’s hand, stepping in front of him, shifting so he was walking backward, facing Tony, “I’m eighteen in a month. That’s not a kid. I’m ready for a suit.” 

Tony shook his head, “You know what? Ask my husband about that and then _maybe.”_

“No,” Harley groaned, huffing, “Rhodey doesn’t even let me train to fight, let alone get my own suit.” 

“He doesn’t think you’re ready.” 

“But I am!” 

Tony gave him a look. “Harley. Kid. You’re not ready. You’re a child. A brilliant and smart child, but a child.” 

“Seventeen is not-“ 

“Let yourself be a kid, Harley. That’s all I want. For you to be a kid just a little bit longer.” 

There was nothing he could respond with. 

He didn’t get it. Tony had taken him on to learn how to be Iron Man. To be a hero. To be something more than another brain behind a fortune five hundred company. But he hadn’t been doing anything that he wouldn’t have done in Rose Hill. He went to a high school, worked with his hands in his lab, built himself things, built so many things for others. It just felt all… slow. 

He wanted to be ready for the Iron Man armor. 

And he was. He didn’t give a shit about how Tony thought he was just a kid. He wasn’t. He was the smartest mind of his generation, neck-in-neck with the fucking princess of Wakanda. He was better than just a kid. He deserved to be able to fight alongside his friends and heroes and mentor. He wasn’t just a kid. He didn’t need to be treated like one. 

He huffed.

“Don’t get so pouty, kid,” Tony’s voice was quieter than usual, “I’m not saying you can’t…How about this- if you can figure out time travel, you can make a suit.”  
  
“Deal.”

“Well that was quick.”  
  
“I don’t need to think about whether or not I want to make a suit,” Harley stepped forward again, humming, “I want one. I want to fight. To be a hero. So I’ll figure out how to time travel and prove to you I’m ready.”  
  
Tony shook his head, “If you think like that, kid, I don’t think you are.”  
  
Harley opted to ignore that comment.

After all, now he had a chance. And all he needed was a chance. He was going to prove himself- to Tony, to the world, to everyone. He was Harley Mother Fucking Keener. He could do this. He would invent time travel, do some cool shit, make himself a suit, and be a hero. Be the next Iron Man. He was ready.

The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


“Kid, you’re not ready.”  
  
Peter ran a hand through his hair, “I know. I know I’m not ready. But you guys need help out there, and- and I can’t keep doing nothing.”  
  
“Peter,” Peggy's voice was always soft when it came to him, always reminding him he was the baby of the group, “You’re a vital part of this team. But you’re just a child.” 

“And I’m not trying to argue that point!” Peter pointed out to her, beginning to pace the length of their makeshift camp, “I’m not denying that I’m a kid in over my head, but I am saying that, because I can do the things that I can, if I don’t help now, I’m no better than them.”  
  
Bucky whistled, “Now hold on a minute kid- you’re way better than the fucking Nazis.”  
  
“Language,” Steve mumbled, offhandedly. Peter elected to ignore him. 

“So you agree I should help?”

“I never said that.”  
  
“But I should.”  
  
“Kid-”  
  
“Bucky- Peggy- Steve- all of you!” The crew got quieter, Thor and Bruce looking up from where they were cuddling in the corner, “I can’t not fight anymore. Not when I know now- My aunts and uncles in Poland, they’re all gone. Friends and family, _gone_ . People I love- People I remember and grew up with! The Nazis killed them. I may just be a kid from Queens who got in over his head- whose powers are a mistake- but I need to help. I can’t sit back anymore. I _can’t_.”

Peggy exchanged looks with both of her men, and spoke slowly, “Okay. But you’re a kid, Peter. You need to remember that and let us stay in the lead. Not forever. Just for now.”  
  
“Okay. Okay. Does this mean-”  
  
“You can come on missions,” Steve spoke as slowly as his gal, “But you have to promise to be careful.” 

“I’m always careful.”  
  
Unlike his fella and his gal, Bucky spoke faster, more sure of himself, “Kid. You’re never careful. Just remember- these are life and death situations. You need to be on guard.”  
  
“Well, at least he has the Peter tingle.”  
  
He felt his cheeks flush, “Spider sense!” 

“Peter tingle, Spider sense,” Steve offered a smile, “No difference.”  
  
Peggy rolled her eyes, offering a smile, “Boys, behave. Stop teasing Peter.” 

“We can’t help it Peg,” Steve grinned, “He’s just too easy to get to.”  
  
“Yeah, Peg,” Bucky’s grin mirrored Steve’s, “The kid’s fun to mess with.”  
  
Peter huffed, taking the moment to slip away, looking around their makeshift camp. He thought that if this were any other time in the world, he would love this area. It was beautiful at night- clear-skied. Snow on the ground, and trees lining the camp. The Germans had retreated earlier that day, and they’d taken the moment to breathe and find another Hydra base. 

It was peaceful. 

And that’s what he wanted. Peace. Peace and for his people to be free. For everyone to be free. For the fucking Nazis to stop. For Hydra to stop. He knew that he was a mistake- that the spider was never supposed to live, let alone transfer and alter his DNA. But now that he had this power, he needed to use it. Too many had been hurt, too many had died, for him to just not try to fight. 

He would fight. And the allies would win. 

Bucky came up behind him, clasping his shoulder gently, “Hey.”

“Hello,” He tried not to startle, but did anyway, offering a sheepish smile to Bucky, “What are you doing out here? I thought you’d be in with Peggy and Steve.”

“They’re having fun with Bruce and Thor right now,” He shrugged, uncharacteristically serious for James Bucchanan Barnes, “I know I’m the one who said you need to be on guard, and I’ve been vouching for you for weeks to my dolls, but.. Kid… I’m worried about you.”  
  
Peter flushed, shrugging, “I’m the super soldier, not you.”  
  
“Kid. It’s not about that,” Bucky shot him a look, before moving so he and Peter were meeting eyes, “You have an aunt to get back home too. My ma, she’s got other kids. Peg’s ma is dead, same with Bruce’s. Thor can’t die. Stevie’s got no one but me and Peg. You aunt ain’t got no one but you.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Yeah, Oh.” Bucky stayed firm, “I know this group babies you a lot, but kid, you have to understand why. You’re the future. We need scientists like you- with Doctor Erskine gone-”  
  
“Please don’t remind me,” It was getting harder and harder to look into Bucky’s eyes, “He was more than my mentor.”  
  
Bucky pulled him into a hug, “I know kid. He was your family after your uncle passed and you and your aunt were on your own. But that’s why the world needs you Peter. You’re as smart as hell- almost smarter than Howard.”  
  
Somewhere from in the camp, a drunken voice shouted, “I heard that!” 

Both of them chose to ignore it. Peter pulled away, looking back at the trees and sky, “That’s why I need to help. Because I can do the things that others can’t, and think twice as fast, and be better than regular unaffected men. I need to help.”  
  
“And I support that, kid,” Bucky stared off to the direction that Peter was looking, “You just… you remind me of a scrawny, scrappy, too good for his own wellbeing, dumbass, hard headed kid I used to know.”  
  
“He from Queens too?”

“Brooklyn, actually.”

“Did- did you just compare me to your fella?”  
  
“It’s like looking into the past except you're smarter and funnier than he is.”

“Bucky!”  
  
“Stevie was dumb as bricks and didn’t know when to stop fighting- actually, no, it’s _just_ like looking into the past.”

“Hey!” 

“A dumbass kid-”

New York City, 2019

  
  


“-who’s going to get himself hurt!” 

Harley snorted, “Shuri, I’m not going to get hurt.”  
  
“You, my dumbass white boy,” Shuri snarled, pacing on the holo screen, “Are totally going to get hurt, and I will laugh at you.” 

“It’s just a time machine!”

“Just a time machine- you’re using some of the most unstable methods to procure time travel I have ever seen! It’s like you don’t even care that you are going to _decimate_ half of manhattan!”

He paused, giving her a dry look, “I know what I’m doing.”  
  
“You literally don’t.”  
  
“Shuri,” She gave him a nasty look, but he powered through, “I’m one of the only people in the world as smart as you- smarter on your bad days. If anyone can figure out time travel, it’s me.”  
  
Shuri looked away from him, typing on a screen. They both stayed silent for a moment before Shuri laughed coldly, “You have a 3.758 chance of succeeding, Harley.” 

“You, sir, are an asshole.” 

“Sir?”  
  
“Oh sorry, your royal snootiness,” He laid the sarcasm on thick, typing out his own probability theorem, “I forgot you’re the absolute beautiful and wonderful princess of Wakanda who deserves all the respect and love in the world- despite the fact that I’ve seen you snort Fun Dip on five separate occasions.”

She snorted, glaring at him, “And I’m the asshole?”

“Yes, you are,” He glared at his screen, “But not about that. I got the same exact result- but instead of 3.758, I have about a 3.752 chance of success.”  
  
“So I was right!” 

“So you were _almost_ right.” 

“Still right.” 

“Almost right,” Harley caught her eye, and ran a hand through his hair, grinning, “But I like these odds. I’m known for doing the impossible.”

“You’re known for being a dumbass.”

Harley huffed. Technically she was right- but that dumbassery was impossible dumbassery. He was doing more and more impossible shit in the name of stupidity. But maybe that was why Tony didn’t trust him with a suit. 

He shook his head, “Not anymore. I can’t be known as a dumbass anymore.” 

“Woah, okay,” Shuri’s eyes narrowed, and her entire demeanor changed to mirror Harley’s; all work, no play, “Why are you so serious about this?”  
  
“Tony-” He cut himself off, shaking his head again, face deadly serious, “This is my only way to prove myself to them. To show that I’m not some kid anymore. I deserve the armor and I can fight. I need to prove myself, Shuri.”  
  
She went quiet, watching him, before speaking slowly, “That’s why he put you on the time machine. Because it’s something no one else has done.”  
  
“Because it's almost impossible to manipulate the time spectrum, point blank.”  
  
“So he’s asking you to do the impossible to prove your worth.” 

“And I will do the impossible,” Shuri’s eyes narrowed as he spoke, “I’m going blackout until I figure it out.”  
  
Shuri’s entire face was angry when he looked at her, eyes narrowed as far as they could be, “You know, out of all the stupid, dumb, idiotic, brainless-” 

“Those are all synonyms, Shuri.”  
  
“-fucked up, wreckless, horrible, bad ideas you’ve had, I think that one is the worst you’ve had ever.”  
  
“Black out mode isn’t that bad,” Harley turned away from her, “I have a mini-fridge full of food, water, and I’ve got a cot. I’ll be fine.”  
  
“You won’t eat any food, and you will not sleep,” She argued, and Harley could picture her speaking with her hands, trying to emphasize the dumbness of his discussions, “I know you, Harley David Keener. You need a lot of things- blackout is not one of them. Let me help.”  
  
“Shuri, I don’t expect you to understand-” 

“Of course I understand! But this is madness-”

“This is brilliance.” 

“You’re being an idiot.”

“I have to!” The words came out harsher than he meant, but once he started, he couldn't stop at all, “I have to do this! I need to figure out how to time travel and I need to do it on my own! No one will take me seriously unless I prove myself!” 

Shuri shook her head, “But is proving yourself worth being hurt?” 

“Yes.”

“No.” 

“Yes.” 

“See this,” She motioned to him, huffing, “is why no one thinks you're ready.” 

He blinked at her. She blinked back. When he finally spoke, it was slow and cautious, “But you think I’m ready.” 

She stayed silent. 

“Oh my god,” Harley hated when he was upset. His voice was filled with raw emotion and it was too southern to take seriously, “You don't think I’m ready either. It’s not that you think I won’t or can’t create a time machine in an effective manner that doesn’t blow up New York. It’s that you don’t think I’m ready.” 

“Harley, that’s not-“ 

“Don’t patronize me, Shuri!” He stood, pacing, running a hand through his hair, “You don’t think I’m ready?” 

“I think you think you're ready.” 

“God, you sound like your brother.” 

“Then I must be doing something right,” Her eyes narrowed, “He is the king of my country after all.”

He gave her a mean look, and she fell quiet. Even a princess seemed to know when she had hurt her friend. His voice was quiet and piercing when he spoke, “I’ll see you after blackout. Fri, end transmission.”  
  
The videofeed was gone before Shuri could protest. 

Harley would show them. Harley would show everyone. He was Harley Mother Fucking Keener, he could take apart almost every single car in the world within the span of two minutes. He knew every single element in existence and had helped create new ones. He was Harley. He was ready. 

“Put the lab on blackout,” His voice was smaller than he felt, “And put it on no overrides but me, will you Fri?”  
  
“Harley-” 

“Please, Friday.”

“Blackout Protocol initiated.” 

“Thank you.” 

He turned to his workbench, eyes hard. He could do this. He could do this. 

Harley Keener would make a time machine and then he would fly. 

  
  


The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


The boy who fell out of the sky was beautiful. That was the first thing Peter noticed. He looked like an angel- but he was in a white tank top, loose fitting jeans, and a type of converse that Peter had never seen before. His golden brown hair was splashed around him in messy curls, and he looked like he was groggy coming to his senses.  
  
“What...?” He sat up, and looked around, and when he caught sight of them he grinned maniacally and called out, “Hey! What’s the date? What year is it?” 

Peter’s mind blanked, “Uh- 1942?” 

“Yes!” He jumped up, and pointed his middle finger to the sky, “Take that Shuri! Take that Tony! I did it you dumb ugly bastards! I invented time travel!” 

Just as quickly as the joy entered the angel, every part of him went tense and dropped down. He looked at Peter, “Please tell me you did not just say 1942?” 

“Uh- yeah? It’s 1942?”

“Fuck- fuck- fuck-“ the angel glanced around the other in the camp and balked, “Fuck- you guys are the fucking Avengers.” 

Steve stepped forward, “Son, are you alright? You don’t seem alright.” 

“Fuck off, Rogers,” The angel- who swore worse than anyone Peter had ever heard talk- growled, “I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to my year so I can prove to Tony that I time traveled and that I deserve a suit.” 

The entire camp just blinked at him.

Peggy stepped forward slowly, “What on God's earth are you talking about?” 

“I made time travel,” The boy was scrambling around, and let out a hurt sound at the sight of scattered metal, the object that had fallen with him broken into pieces around him, “No- no- shit! Shit!” 

“Uh.. kid,” Bruce stepped forward, “Did you just say that you made time travel?” 

The boy paused, eyes wide at him, “Holy shit. You’re Bruce Banner- dude, you were like one of my biggest heroes- I can’t believe- Shuri is going to be _so_ jealous.” 

Everyone in the camp blinked again. Bruce spoke hesitantly, “Thank you?” 

“You’re welcome,” The boy paced around more, trying to find parts of his inventions, “God fucking dammit- this is what I get- it’s all scattered- I need to rebuild it.” 

Bucky caught Peters arm, murmuring quietly, “This kid- do you think he’s Hydra?” 

“No,” Peter responded back just as quiet, “I’m getting nothing from my spider-sense about him, and you know that always lights up around Hydra agents. I think… I think he’s telling the truth.” 

“Plus the fact he sounds like a bloody hick.” 

“Be nice, babydoll.” 

“Sorry, James.”

The boy had stopped pacing around to stare at all of them, looking pale, “Um… I don’t know what to do in this situation. I’ve never been the victim of accidental time travel before. Does uh- do any of you guys know how this shit works?”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Howard stepped forward, and Peter wanted to make him step back down. He loved Howard- the guy was like an older brother to him- but he was a little much. “Did you say accidental time travel?” 

“I,” The boy stared at him with wide eyes, startled, “I- fuck. Tony’s going to fucking murder me.” 

Then the boy promptly hunched over, vomited blood, and passed out into said pool of blood. Peter rushed forward, scooping him up and into his arms. He almost couldn’t breathe. This boy was stunning- more beautiful than anybody Peter had ever seen. Even when covered in his own blood. 

Yeah. This was normal. 

He looked up at his fellow soldiers, “Um… What do we do?”  
  
“Uh- Take him to my tent,” Howards brow furrowed, “I have medical equipment in there- and anything he might need to reassemble his.. Time machine?”  
  
“Let's hold off on that thought,” Peggy frowned, her red lips pressed thin, “We should ask him a few questions first.”

Howard and Bruce both scoffed, and when Howard spoke it was with considerable ire, “You did not just imply we ask about the future.”  
  
“Peggy, we can’t know anything about the future,” Bruce continued, “Or else it would create some form of paradox.” 

“I know about the future-”

“Quiet, Thor, you know about Asgards future, not ours.”

Thor pouted, and resumed his place playing cards with a green snake. Steve just shook his head, “One problem at a time, guys. Lets get this boy cleaned up and set up, then we can focus on the issues of the future.”

Peter gently took the boy into Howards tent, setting him down on a spare cot. He sure was pretty. His eyes fluttered in his sleep, and he was breathing evenly and gently, murmuring something or another. Peter felt himself flush. This boy was way prettier than any gal he had ever known. He traced his jawline- someone in the back of his mind told him he was being creepy- and the boy leaned into his touch, mumbling something about particle accelerators. He was smart, too, apparently. 

But then again, you had to be smart to build a time machine, Peter mused. He didn't understand why he was so sure that this kid was telling the truth. If it was anyone else in the world, Peter wouldn't hesitate to question them. But this boy… this beautiful boy… made him almost sure that there was a future beyond this war. That there was more. 

Howard came in behind him, “It's creepy to stroke his face like that.” 

“I- I was not-” He flushed up to his ears, pulling away from the boy, “Okay- I was- but, Howard, come on, he’s just so pretty.” 

“You’re a weird one, you know that?” 

“Everyone in this camp but you has had a same-gender attraction at once.” 

“Who says I haven’t?”  
  
“The womanizer Howard Stark, into men?”

“I’m a true trailblazer, what can I say.” 

Peter laughed, “You’re horrible, you know that?” 

“Yes,” Howard grinned arrogantly, “But I’m also beautiful, and rich, and a philanthropist, and a genius.”

“You forgot playboy.”

“That too.”

The kid groaned, blinking his eyes open blearily. He reached out to them, “Tony…?”

Howard and Peter both turned to him, then shot a look at each other. Howard stepped forward, “No one named Tony is here, kid.”

“Stop messing with me,” He mumbled, grabbing Howards shirt sleeve, eyes barely open, “I did it, Tony. I did it. I proved myself. I time traveled. I’m ready.”

That seemed to be all the energy the boy had left in him, because he closed his eyes again and let go of Howard's sleeve. Both of them let out a breath. 

“You know, when I’m a dad,” Howard was looking at the kid with curious eyes, “I won’t ever make my kid prove themselves.” 

Peter just shook his head, “You’re missing the bigger picture. What’s he need to be ready for?”

“That, Peter Parker, is a good question.” 

Peter watched the boy sleep. 

  
  


New York City, 2019

  
  


“-Harley!” Peter gasped awake, taking in his surroundings quickly. 

He was in a hospital in New York City. A baseball game was playing on the radio, and it was gray outside. Wait- wait. The last thing he remembered was trying to disassemble the missiles when Steve had told him that they were going down. 

Steve- where was Steve- no one was in the room near him. 

A woman opened the door, “Ah, Mr. Parker. It’s nice to see you awake.” 

His eyes narrowed. Her hair… this wasn’t a style of curls he’d ever seen before. Her shoes were too shiny and new to be a nurse’s. Her entire demeanor- his senses tingled. He listened more carefully to the Phillies game. 

“-the Phillies have managed to tie it up, four to four-”

He froze. He went to this game. Just before he started working with Erkisne, he went to this game, with May. 

This… this was the future. 

He glared at the woman, “Where’s Harley?”

“I… who?” She faltered, not expecting him to say that, clearly.

“Drop the act,” He stood, “I know this isn’t 1942, so tell me right now, where is _Harley Keener.”_

Her eyes narrowed, and she spoke into her shoulder, “Bring in Stark.”

For a moment there was silence and tension between them, before a man who looked almost exactly like Howard stumbled into the room with wide eyes, “How the hell do you know Harley.”  
  
“I just do,” He felt like a child, pouting, but he stayed firm, “Bring me to him.”

Stark paused, “We can’t.”

“What?”  
  
“He’s been missing for two weeks.”


	2. shake it up (throw your hands up and get loose)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harley was convinced it was a dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey!! sorry for not posting. Last few weeks of school + ap exams kept me away from writing. I'm going to /try/ for a better upload schedule.

The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


Harley was convinced it was a dream. A terrible, horrible, awful, dream, where he accidentally threw himself into an age where there was no such things as phones, or Iron Man, or anything he loved and appreciated. It was all a dream and he would wake up in his room, with Abbie screaming at Tony about being late for school, and Rhodey burning their breakfast. He could almost taste the burnt sausage. He would call Shuri and apologize for being so awful to her and putting her on blackout. It was all a dream. 

Then he opened his eyes to an army camp and thought, ‘oh fuck.’ 

So it turns out that it wasn’t a dream. Harley was actually in the year 1942, sleeping in a camp alongside the Avengers. It was- this was- wild. Insane. Unreal. The list of adjectives went on and on. But he couldn’t. He stood up shakily, shivering from the cold and slipped out the tent. 

James Barnes- of fallen soldier, only Avenger to die during battle, could’ve been captured by Hydra, legend- was the only one up. He glanced up at Harley and hummed, “So you’re awake.” 

“Yeah,” he responded hesitantly, “I- where am I?”   
  
“What do you remember?”    
  
“I was in my lab,” Harley’s voice was slow, trying to convey all the emotions running through him, “In the twenty-first century. I was- I was building a time machine. I got frustrated and hit it with a hammer- and- next thing I know I’m here- in what I’m giving a rough guess as 1942. History was never my strong suit though, so I could be wrong.”   
  
Barnes shook his head, “Sounds about right from what we could gather from you last night. And you’re right- 1942. What I want to know is why the hell should we trust your story?”   
  
“I- I uh,” He licked his lips, trying to hide the fact he was shivering from Barnes, “I don’t know. I’m disabled and American, so you know I can’t be German- but I have no proof, huh. Hell- I haven't even been born yet, so no Identification or license, or anything.”   
  
“Kid…” Barnes was staring at him, “You’re crying.”   
  
“I do that when I'm frustrated.”   
  
“Why are you frustrated?”    
  
“I’m in a foreign land and time, doing God knows what, with a bunch of people I’ve only ever read about,” His breath felt short, “Meanwhile, My family is back home, and won’t notice I’m missing for days because I was an idiot and was on blackout mode- my baby sister is probably going to freak out- and the last thing I said to anyone was basically telling off my best friend. Oh- and I have  _ no idea _ how I made the whole time travel thing happen in the first place, so I have no idea how to get back home at all.”

Barnes looked at him hard, “We’ll get you back home, kid. You’ve got three of the smartest people in the world in this camp, and a demi-god. If anyone can get you back home its us.”

Something dark and sick twisted in his gut. Barnes was the only Avenger to actively die for his country, and even then- he might’ve just gotten stuck as Hydra’s puppet. That was one thing he hadn’t even thought about. How was he supposed to face all of these people when he  _ knew _ their future? Was he just supposed to look Steve Rogers in the eye and not scream because he dies in a horrible plane crash in the North Atlantic that’s so bad no one ever recovers his plane or his body? Was he supposed to look at Peter Parker and whisper that he probably had the worst death of them all because he was  _ defusing bombs _ when the plane crashed?   
  
How was he going to face Howard when he knew how Howard had beat Tony, years and years later from who he was now? How was he supposed to do absolutely anything? And Peggy- he had just attended her funeral with Tony and Rhodey. Was he supposed to warn her about what was to come? All the heartbreak and suffering and everything that was going to happen? Was he going to tell her about how after the war she meets Miss Angie and things seem brighter until Miss Angie is taken from her too?

What was he in charge of here?

“-Kid,” Barnes snapped in front of his face, and Harley startled back hard, staring wide eyed at him, “I’ve been calling you for five minutes. You got one of Howard’s overthinking looks on your face. Answer my question.”   
  
“What question?”   
  
“Your name.”   
  
“Oh- Harley. Harley Davidson Keener.”

Barnes laughed, and it was a sound that reminded Harley of Rhodey, “Like the motorcycle?” 

“They have Harley Davidsons?” 

“Jesus, yes. Me and Steve use them to, you know- fight Hydra.”   
  
Harley blinked.   
  
“Christ, you don’t know anything about the past, do you?”   
  
“In my defense,” he huffed, feeling more at ease as the conversation dragged- despite the looming fear of ‘oh my god, I know how everyone in this camp dies’- and he ran a hand through his hair, “I’m deaf, dyslexic, and ADHD. I don’t do well in subjects that involve a lot of lecture types.”   
  
And just when Harley thought he was relaxing, the world bit him in the ass. Howard Stark came out of his tent stretching, “You’re more of a hands-on mechanic type, right?”   
  
“Yep,” he tried not to tense, but it was a little hard when the man who had abused and psychologically scared his mentor was acting all chummy and good with him, “It’s how I built the time machine.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” Howard grin held so much Tony in it, it really did make Harley sick, “To know that the next generations of inventors are innovative and creative.” 

Harley just nodded, “Yeah. I guess.”   
  
“You alright, kid?” God why was Howard being so nice to him, “You look a little pale.”    
  
Harley shrugged in response. Of course he was a little pale. A few months before he got himself into this mess, they had found out that Howard had most likely been assassinated- maybe by Barnes, not that any of them understood it. Fuck. This was all too much.

“Oh, lay off him, Howard,” He blinked and turned his attention to the freshly awake Peggy, who immediately moved to lean onto Barnes, “You’re the one who said we needed to give the kid space.”    
  
Harley spoke up hesitantly, “So have you guys decided that I’m not- you know- a German spy?”

“Well,” Peggy shrugged, in a very un-Peggy like move. He had never seen the Peggy Carter he had gotten to know before the dementia took her look anything less than completely sure of herself, “No. I’m still in the camp that you may very well be dangerous,” She sent him a hard look, “But everyone else feels you’re just here by mistake.”   
  
“It is a mistake,” Harley groaned, miserable, “You think I want to be here in your time? No. In my time, the worst war in human history is over and I can lounge around and build to my heart’s content. You guys have rationing, and gender roles, and dumb shit like that.”

From somewhere within the camp, Steve Rogers called language. Harley ignored it.

“So the future is better?”   
  
He hesitated, “No and yes. You’ll understand when you get there.”    
  
“When we get there?”   
  
“Not through time travel,” He amended, “but the natural progression of time- how it was meant to be. I did something idiotic- though I’m no sure how.”    
  
Peter Parker stepped forward, sitting down next to him and offering a shy and dopey smile, “We can help with that.”

“Yeah- I realize,” he didn't know why his heart was pounding, but it was, “You’re Peter Parker, right? You uh- you’re one of the smartest minds of this century. You landed an internship with Erkinsine when you were fifteen. Got bit by a radioactive spider three days later.”   
  
“Woah,” Peter blinked and whisleted, “Does everyone in the future know about me?”   
  
Harley avoided his eyes, “You guys are the Avengers. Living legends and gods. It’s- it’s huge. No one ever could replicate the entire… super soldier-ness of you guys since.”   
  
“No one except us you mean?”   
  
Harley felt sick. Peter was looking at him with wide, open, and honest brown eyes, staring into his soul. How was he supposed to tell him that he died? He wasn’t. He couldn’t. He shifted his gaze to the ground, “Yeah, something like that.” 

Peter smiled- and it was warm and good, and it made Harley feel even sicker- and patted his shoulder, “Now come on. No more future talk, just food.”   
  
Halrey nodded. His brain was still spinning with everything he knew about these people. He didn't think he could stomach any food. 

He put on a grin for Peter Parker and let the other eighteen year old talk for as long as he wanted. Panic could come in another moment. 

  
  


New York City, 2019

  
  


Peter was most definitely not panicking. Panicking was not a thing he did. He was not. Panicking was for babies and war time and it wasn't either so he wasn’t panicking. Except he definitely was.   
  
“So let me get this straight,” He was fidgeting- he hated fidgeting, “you lost Harley Keener, Steve still hasn't woken up, and all my friends and family are dead, and I was frozen in ice for seventy years?”    
  
Tony Stark- the  _ son _ of Howard, Howard had a  _ son _ \- nodded, pacing along the length of his apartment sized kitchen, “Yeah. Basically.”

“How do you  _ lose _ a person?”

“He put himself on blackout,” Tony was still pacing, but the steps became increasingly faster, “We have no video because the idiot tapped over the security cameras-”

“-the what-”   


“-and Jarvis-”

“Like Edwin?”

“No, my AI-” 

“ _ -AI?” _

“-yes, artificial intelligence-” 

“You have  _ those? _ ”

“He’s the only one right now- not the point,” He stopped suddenly, turning to him, “Listen, Harley’s missing. We can’t do anything about that right now. We have to figure you out first.”

“What do you mean  _ figure me out _ ?”

Tony Stark sighed, rubbing his brow, “Kid. You should’ve  _ exploded.  _ You should have died. You didn’t. You didn’t die. You’re here, breathing, alive. That’s what we need to figure out.” 

“I can answer that for you,” Peter’s hands were shaking, “The spider bite changed my genetics. I went from a scrawny 5’6 kid with asthma and glasses, to a 6’1 hunk-“ he faltered. That was what Harley had called him. He breathed out, “- who can stick to walls and lift seven times what’s possible for a human. I age the same- unlike Steve- but I’m not fully human. My genetics have changed. If I was in ice- my body would’ve reacted like a coma. Same with Steve. It makes  _ perfect _ sense.” 

“I mean,” Tony got a look on his face- something so so Howard like that it made Peter’s chest pang, “you’re right. From what we know of your genetic composition, you’re technically right.” 

“I know I’m right.” 

“Yeah, you’re the leading expert on you,” That was something he wasn’t used to. Adults taking him seriously. He offered Tony a smile, and Tony faltered, “But there’s a lot going on right now. You should get some rest.” 

“Do I… do I have a  _ place  _ to rest?” 

“Yeah,” Tony lead him down a hall away from the labs, lined with doors. Two seemed claimed. One was decorated in purple fairies and the name ‘ABBIE’ was written in a Shakespearean font on the door. The other… his breath hitched. Baseball bats and pink glitter. The name ‘harley’ written in a messy font. Tony turned and let him into the door a few doors away from Harleys room, “Here. Listen- I know this is all confusing, and I’m probably not being as helpful as I could be but- it’s gonna be okay, all right kid? Steve’s gonna wake up and-“ 

Peter looked up at him, “Thank you, for the room. And for explaining to me what was going on.” 

“No problem.” With that, Tony Stark- he still couldn’t believe this was Howard’s son- shuffled out of the room.

He took his new living quarters in for a moment. Shiny and metallic in a way he noticed was very quid pro quo of modern. The bed looked unused, pristine with white sheets. He really liked the space he’d been given. He tiptoed out of the room after a second, and entered Harleys room. 

It smelled like his missing boyfriend. 

Not only did it smell like Harley- everything in it screamed Harley. There were baseball bats piled into the corner- Harley had said it was the only sport he ever loved. The room was messy, but not in an untidy way. There was no food or drink left out, but there was a see through minifridge full of a drink called Dr. Pepper. And aligning the walls… Peter’s breath hitched. 

Photos of Harley. He didn’t blink in how clear the image was or how colorful it was. His eyes stayed glued to the boy he was in love with. Those dirty blonde curls glistening in the sunlight- he was posing on a beach somewhere warm and sunny. His smile, mischievous and true- he was looking at his sister about to dump water on her head. And there was one photo- a photo of Harley and an African girl posing back to back, grinning like wildfire, eyes twinkling, holding up the ray guns he would later go on to use in the fight against the Nazis. 

He loved Harley Keener. 

The last six months of his life- of his real life had shown him that. So he laid down in the love of his life’s bed and closed his eyes. He could almost picture the last day they had Harley. 

Three days before they lost Bucky. Five before they lost their lives. Harley had woken up how he had always woken up. Slowly and in Peter’s arms, in his tent, curled up to him, offering warmth and relaxation to Peter. They had kissed. Slow and languid and wanting and so, so soft. Harley had whispered an offer. Peter had to refuse. He couldn’t let Harley stay. Not for him. Not when every single molecule of Harley was somewhere else entirely. He had traced his fingers over that two o’clock shadow Harley had gotten- something that had taken six months to do. He whispered that he wanted to shave Harley. 

He had kissed Harley slowly, soundly, before gently tilting his head back, using the shaving cream for a thick layer of barrer. Harely had laughed at him, a soft, subtle noise. He had been so soft, that morning. Their last morning. Had listened to Peter’s every whim and need and notion. Had willingly tilted his head into Peters hands, allowing six months of work to come right off. 

They had made love then, after. In the slow subtle movements of the morning, when both of them knew it was going to be their last. Harley had whispered that he trusted Peter, and it was something so unlike anything Peter had ever felt. Their hands laced together, Harley’s skin, the feel of his mouth. The way Harley cried tears of joy and sorrow when Peter whispered I love you into his neck. Everything. Soft and sweet and slow and good.

Nothing could erase that from his mind. 

When Harley eventually stood in that field, alone, ready to go home, he had turned to Peter, crying. He always cried when he was feeling any sort of strong emotion. And he whispered five words that penetrated Peter's soul and tore him limb from limb. 

"I love you, Peter Parker."

Then he was gone.

Another intimate moment between them, lost in time. 

Everything about them, lost in time. 

Their love story. Their life together. When Harley got back, who was to say he would even remember him? 

Harley could have forgotten him. 

The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


If there was one thing Harley was sure of, it was that he would never forget Peter Parker’s smile. The boy chirped nervously, chatting aimlessly about this and that, and all the while he had an awkward little smile on his face. He only had one dimple, and a lopsided grin, and Harley didn’t know anything that was going on, but he knew this. He would never forget Peter Parker’s smile.

It wasn’t just the smile though- everything about Peter made Harley feel like he was back home and normal. Maybe it was because he was the only person in the camp close to Harley’s age- but what he knew for sure is that he trusted, and hell, maybe even liked Peter Parker. 

They had been working together for a week. The entirety of Harley’s stay here- it started small. Peter would offer to work with him when he wasn’t joining the others on raiding Hydra compounds. One thing Harley was always unsure about was just how quickly the rag tag group moved. He didn’t know where he fit in- in the chaos of the fighters and brilliant scientists he could never compare to, he didn’t know who he was or where he belonged. Howard Stark hadn’t become a bad person yet. He was funny and lively and dorky, and hit on every girl who they ran by, but always respected whatever they said. Peggy Carter was so snarky and sharp and clever-eyed. It reminded him so much of the Peggy he had gotten to know- and he couldn’t help wonder if this, if traveling back in time, was the reason she had been so fond of him. Steve Rogers was much more of an idiot than he had ever been taught and Bucky Barnes was one of the greatest men he ever met. Thor taught him how to help set up camp, and Bruce had devoted his time to assuring Harley that they’d get him back home. 

It didn’t feel real. 

None of them felt real. 

Harley felt like he had skipped from the pages of real life to a history book he had read out of when he was six. And it hurt his head. It made his vision swim when he thought about it too long, and made him so frustrated he would randomly burst into tears. 

Peter helped. The other teen managed to keep Harley off edge, reminding him that he was there, helping him adjust. They’d taken to sleeping in the same tent, and there hadn’t been a night since Harley came to the 40s that he hadn’t stayed up and talked. They talked about everything. About Harley’s family. About Peter’s. They were friends. 

Harley was really glad that he was friends with him. 

Today however, was different. Peter smiled over his shoulder, as he walked out of camp, gun on his back, prepared to fight the Nazis and Harley’s heart seized. He wasn’t afraid of Peter dying- he knew how Peter died. But he was afraid of Peter getting hurt and everything that could happen. He wasn’t going to let it show, but he’d grown very attached to his only friend in a strange and forgiven place. 

Howard clapped his shoulder, “Breathe, kid. It’s just a routine Hydra base sweep. They’ll come back alive.” 

“I know,” He said slowly, “I’m not afraid of them dying.” 

“They won’t get hurt, either.” 

“How do you know that?”

Howard shrugged and for a second he could see Tony. It was uncanny, “I just do- say, Harley. I know Brucie doesn’t want me to push you too much, but do you want to help me build a new suit for Peter? As much as I like the standard military look-“ 

“Yes,” he breathed, remembering the comic books he once read about the Avengers, and the spiders red and blue suit with white and black edging, “I have- I know- I know the design.” 

“Huh,” Howard blinked, “That was easy.” 

Harley shrugged, playing with his hands. If this were the future he would have a small rabbit robot named Bunny that never left his side when he was nervous- but this wasn’t the future so he cleared his throat, “Every kid goes through a phase of loving the Avengers comic books. I was no different. It didn’t last long but I did doodle a hell of a lot of Peter Parker in that time.” 

“No wonder you’re so attached to him!” 

“Nah, that’s because he’s the only person around me who’s not an old geezer.” 

Howard squaked, “Old geezer?! I’m twenty two! I’m in the prime of my youth!” 

Tony had been twenty two when he found out about his parents death. Harley didn’t let it phase him. 

“Sure dude, whatever you say,” he offered a grin, one that Howard returned with a matching one, “But my building project. My way.” 

“Your way, oh dearest time traveler.” 

“Don’t call me that.” 

“What should I call you then?” 

“Harley’s fine.” 

“Harley’s boring. If I had a son, I wouldn’t make him after a motorcycle.” 

Harley didn’t let anything show on his face, “Mhm. Sure you wouldn’t.” 

“I wouldn’t,” Howard rolled his eyes, leading him into the much more high tech- for the time- tent, “but hey, I just wanted to talk to you.” 

“About.” 

“Well,” Howard was rummaging around- finding materials for the Spider-Man suit, “You know- how are you holding up? Are you adapting? The works.” 

He blinked. Out of all the things he wasn’t expecting that, “Oh- uh- I’m doing as fine as I can be, I guess.”

“I know it must be a huge shock,” Howard took out a bucket of scraps, setting it on the table, “to be thrown out of your own time. And it’s hard because you can’t even talk about the modern day without messing up the time stream. But I just want you to know- we’re here for you, kid. If you want, I can get you on the first plane to Malibu and you can stay in my house and recreate your experiment. Get away from the front lines.” 

Harley blinked again. This was… this was a good offer. This was an offer that if he was smarter, he would take. But Harley was known for dumbass decisions. He spoke slowly, “No. no- actually… I think this is my chance to do some good. I- I was actually going to talk to you about something. See Tony- my mentor- he uh- he has a suit of armor. I don’t have the technology or means to make the power source but I can make boots and gauntlets just like it on batteries that back just as much of a punch.” 

Howard’s face had grown serious- more serious than Harley had ever seen- in the time he was talking. He was one again reminded of Tony. The look on Tony’s face when Harley did something and got hurt. The seriousness to his brow and the tightness of his frown. It was terrifying. This man had hurt Tony in so many ways- but Harley looked at him and all he could see was the friend and mentor he admired so much. 

“You want to join the fight.” Howard’s voice was quiet, “I can’t say I don’t understand, but I’m begging you to reconsider.” 

“Why?” 

“Because if you die here, in this time period, no one will know.” Sometimes Harley forgot that Howard Stark was legally smarter than Einstein, “And we- the Avengers- will have to live with that.” 

Harley considered this, but shook his head, “If I’m gonna stay here, I need to pull my weight. I know I’m a burden on y’all’s food rations. I know you guys don’t have the space or time to help me. Yet you are. So I’m gonna help because I  _ can.” _

“You…” Howard sighed, rubbing his hand over his face- another very tony stark move, “You’re gonna have to talk to Peter about that.” 

“What?” 

“Kid’s protective.” 

Harley blinked. He felt like he was doing that in surprise a lot lately, “What do you mean?” 

“Peter Benjamin Parker,” Howard spoke, plain and bored, “Is protective as shit when it comes to his friends. And you’re the only one currently that isn’t in danger constantly. Do the math.” 

“Are you saying…” Harley felt his cheeks flush, “That he won’t let me fight because he cares about me?” 

“Mhmm.” 

“Bullshit. He knows how it feels to be the only one not fighting. He understands. He’ll let me.” 

“Well he won’t let you do anything. If you fight, he’s not gonna let you do it. You’re just gonna have to do it.” 

Harley paused. He had never thought about it like that. He had never just assumed he could do something if he didn’t have the approval of someone else. At least when it came to things like this. If he chose to stay with the Avengers, to fight…. well… what did he have to lose? 

He has lost his friends. His family. His time period. He had lost his technology and his coping techniques. He was lucky to still have hearing aides that worked. He had nothing. He was no one- he didn’t technically exist yet. No one was gonna let him fight. But if he did… if he did he could help. He could be a hero. He could save lives. 

He breathed out. 

He knew what he was going to do. 

  
  


New York, 2019

  
  


He didn’t know what he was going to do. 

So he ran. One thing that was beautiful about his city is that no matter what time period he was in, New York was New York. And Peter loved New York. He loved the burroughs and the street and the life. He really loved the new Times Square, and all the additions to the subway system. He loved the modern world. 

But it was so different. 

He walked along the streets of Queens, looking at the new places. It’d grown since 1942. He’d suppose it had to have grown, to accommodate the new world and generations and everything about the future. It was still strange to think- here he was in the future. 

He blinked. His old apartment building was a nightclub. Huh. 

He slipped in, the bouncer either not paying attention, or not caring about him to stop him. He paused when he stepped in. This used to be the entrance hall to his apartment. Kind of falling apart and not big, but he still recognized the structure. He imagined that the stairs were still where they always were, and so were the elevators, but he didn't know what they could lead to now. He paused and took in the world before him. 

The kids on the dance floor were all definitely in high school. Each one of them couldn’t have been older than him or Harley. He wondered what they were doing here- till he realized he had intruded on a birthday party. Someone named Eugene was eighteen today, and he had rented out a nightclub. 

Peter loved that the future was like this. 

There were enough people at the party for him to feel like sitting down wasn’t a death wish, so he made his way over to the bar. 

“What’ll it be?” The bartender asked lazily, “You look like a rum and coke kinda guy.”    
  
Peter blinked. From what he had read online, twenty-one was now the legal drinking age and he definitely didn’t look twenty-one. He paused, “Just a coke, actually.”   
  
The guy next to him snorted, “Make that two cokes.”

The bartender nodded, and Peter looked at the boy. He was Asian, and looked like one of the boys that Abbie had showed him from her favorite band- but he was dressed in a suit, like tonight was important. The boy looked at him and raised a brow, “I don’t know you.”

“Probably not,” Peter shrugged, “I kind of just wandered in here.”   
  
“Yeah,” the boy sighed, shifting so he was facing Peter, “You and half the crowd. You know, this was supposed to be an intimate affair.”   
  
Peter faltered, “Oh.. sorry. I can uh- I can go?”   
  
“Don’t bother,” The guy shook his head, looking defeated, “He didn’t even show.”   
  
“Who didn’t even show?”   
  
The guy gestured around, “Eugene. My... I want him to be more than my friend- but hell, I’d settle for him being my friend.” 

“That’s rough, buddy,” Peter hummed, “Why didn’t he show?”   
  
“Cause I’m an idiot.”

“I’m sure that’s not why.”   
  
The guy paused and sighed, “You’re right. He’s just- he was so loud and outgoing when we were kids. Then our teens hit and he had no outlet for his feelings so he just... Shut them off. Honestly, I’d rather he lash out than avoid me and the rest of our friends.”   
  
“That’s rough,” he nodded, “I knew a guy like that. Howard- when everything got too much for him, he’d either get angry or he’d just shut everything off.”

The boy nodded quietly, finger tracing the rim of his glass. "Did he ever meet someone who helped?"

“Not that I know of,” He shrugged, and took a limb, “But it’s been... Shit, when did that plane go down?” 

“Huh,” The boy blinked, finally looking at him, “Holy shit. You’re that superhero guy- the one they found in the ice. Man out of time.”   
  
“Yep.” 

“Must suck.”   


“Yep.” 

“Well… I’m Harry Osborn,” Harry offered a hand, “If you ever wanna make plans with someone in this time.”

Peter took it, offering a smile, “You know, I think I’ll take you up on that.”

  
  


The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


“Hey, I’m finally taking you up on that offer to help me out,” Harley slid next to Bucky, “I wanna help the fight.”

Bucky put down the rations he’d been heating, “You want to help fight?”   


“I want to help fight.”   
  
“Kid, you realize you don’t know how to fight, you’re from the future, and your primary goal is to get back… right?”   
  
Harley nodded. He’d expected this, “Yes. But… I’m here. I need to do something. I’m not just going to sit here and watch the world burn and not try to help. I know I’ll get back to the future eventually, but right now…” 

He hesitated, then activated his watch, and watched as Bucky’s eyes went wide. The two gauntlets would’ve made Tony snark at him to do better, but the arc powered machines were still new and shiny in this time period, “I have more advanced technology, and better ability than you guys to dismount their tech.”

“Holy shit,” Bucky whistled, “That’s… wow. That’s wow. Holy shit.”   
  
“Yeah, this is more advanced than anything that’ll come around until the turn of the century.”

Bucky was staring at the glowing blue light, and when he finally spoke he spoke slowly, “So what exactly does that thing do?”   
  
Harley looked at the nearest tree, took a breath and shot clean through it. A little more power than he meant, as the beam caught some of the trees in the surrounding area, causing them all to tople. He breathed out, and jumped up, the boots picked him up immediately and he pulled out the freeze ray he had built a few nights back, aimed at one of the teetering trees, and froze it into place before allowing the boots to drop him back to the ground. 

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” Peggy's familiar British accent chimed from behind them, and Harley jerked to see her and the rest of the Avengers staring at Harley in a mix of awe and shock, “What in the bloody hell are those things?”

Harley offered a small grin, “Machines.”   
  
“Holy fuck,” Howard was grinning like a mad man, and Harley felt a cold chill run down his spin. This man abused his mentor. He glanced away from him, “That’s fantastic, kid!” 

He felt repulsed. Howard Stark was praising him. He shouldn’t be praising him. Howard shouldn’t be praising anybody. He was a vindictive, cruel, meanspirited man and the fact that Howard was now treating him like this made Harley feel a little sick. He didn’t think he would ever be okay with Howard praising him. 

Not when he knew what future Howard would do to his son. 

Steve cleared his throat, “I take it this means you’re suiting up?”   
  
“Yeah,” He nodded slowly, “I figure if I’m going to be stuck in this time for a bit, I should pull my weight. Punch a few Nazis. Fight the good fight- or whatever.”   
  
“Yeah, I understand,” he moved over to Harley to clasp his shoulder, “But are you sure this is what you want to do?”   
  
He paused then glanced at everyone, “Yes.”   
  
“No,” Peter spoke up, seemingly shaking himself off from shock, “Absolutely not.”   
  
Harley had expected this. He gave Peter a look, “I think I have the final say about what I do.”   
  
“Harley- you can’t. No.”   


“Peter, give me one good reason I can’t.”

“Because you’re from the future! Because you need to get back to the future!”   
  
“Peter-”   
  
“No, Harley! You need to get back to it- and- and- I can’t let you get hurt here!”    


“I’m not going to-”   
  
“Yes, you will, and I can’t handle that.”   
  
“So you’re not going to let me fight just because  _ you  _ can’t handle something?”   
  
“Harley-”   
  
“Alright!” Bucky’s voice was firm and final, as he looked in between the two boys, “Harley’s right, Peter. If he’s going to be stuck here he deserves the same chance to fight that we have given you. Alright?”   
  
“No! Not alright,” Throwing his hands up in the air like a child, Peter huffed, “You’re letting him throw himself into a fight that he doesn’t need to be in!”    
  
“We’re giving him the same chance we gave you,” moving away from the angry boy, Bucky met Harley’s eyes, “Besides. Hydra has tech millions of years above what we have seen, but Harley here has tech that’s far better than theirs. He can help us.”

Harley felt a pang in his gut. In all honesty his tech was lackluster compared to Shuri’s or Tony’s- and if he were in his time, it would be a totally different story. He would be getting made fun of, not praised, for his shoddy work. He just nodded, “I can help.”

“No you-”   
  
The power beam shot came out from nowhere, but just like that, everyone was gearing up for a fight. Howard scrambled back to his tent, grabbing a gun; Bucky, who never let his gun leave his side, pulled his off his back and stood close to Steve. Steve readied his shield, and Peggy brought out her pistol. Bruce, Thor and Peter all stood at the ready to lurch out and fight. 

Harley held his breath and powered up his gloves. 

In seconds Hydra was around them, charging, firing their weapons- and Harley was on his feet. He didn’t know what everyone else was doing, but he managed to fire off repulsor rounds at rapidfire speed, disarming seven men. He charged forward, his freeze ray aimed at their feet, stopping their momentum and forcing several to fall backward awkwardly. 

He swarmed, activating his boots to get the high ground, spotting an agent trying to get Peter from behind, and shot him down, much to Peter’s confusion. He slammed his heel into the head of an agent, and jumped on one with all his weight, taking out another one with a well timed repulsor shot.

After a moment, what felt like seconds, but must have been several minutes, the Hydra agents spat something in German and those who could retreat did. The Avengers stood in panting heaving silence. 

It was Peter who spoke, quiet and looking at Harley, “Fine. You can fight.”   
  
“Okay,” He relaxed, and moved to press into Peter’s side with a small grin, “Thank you.”   
  
“Don't thank me,” Peter offered him a grin back and whatever tension that had been cast around them before disappeared. 

“Well, you two are cute,” Peggy’s voice was dry, “But we need to pack up and go. Now.” 

“Right.”   
  


“Yeah.”   
  
They shared a smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think! You can hit me up at Peachy-keener on tumblr! Thanks to Ava for beta reading this chapter!


	3. if we hold onto hope (we'll have a happy ending)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter deadpanned, “Mr. Stark, I am a skinny asthmatic nerd at heart. When I was in high school, I was shoved into lockers all day! I was pushed around! I was a total dweeb! No one liked me- hell, my best friend was my science teacher! Mr. Stark, if I go back to high school, I’m gonna get bullied again!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is 9,530 words and im WILDING 
> 
> warning, the end of this chapter has Harley getting beat up

New York City, 2019

  
  


“Okay, I don’t think I understand.”  
  
Tony looked at him, clearly more amused than annoyed, “What’s there not to understand?”   
  
“Just,” He motioned around, and then back to the phone, then back to the room, “Everything you said.”   
  
“Do you want me to start over?”   
  
Peter hesitated. 

He got the _idea_ of it. He understood why he needed to learn about the world now, integrate himself with the technology. He processed that. He understood he should catch up on the history around him. He understood he needed to learn how to be a modern kid and stuff. 

But why the fuck did he need to go back to high school?  
  
Instead of voicing that thought, he said quietly, “I just…know that I am a super genius who graduated high school in 1938. Why do I have to go back?”   
  
“Because kid,” Tony offered a reassuring smile, and Peter felt comforted. This guy wasn’t his old family, but he definitely had started considering him family, “You need to be educated about the world, and everything you missed. It won’t be too bad- you’re smart and you can keep up.”

“Right, right, that’s not the issue.”  
  
“What’s the issue.”   
  
Peter deadpanned, “Mr. Stark, I am a skinny asthmatic nerd at heart. When _I_ was in highschool, I was shoved into lockers all day! I was pushed around! I was a total dweeb! No one liked me- hell, my best friend was my _science teacher!_ Mr. Stark, if I go back to high school, I’m gonna get bullied again!”   
  
“You… you’re so stupid,” Tony rubbed a hand over his face, “Literally so so stupid. Kid. _Kid._ You’re a super hero from legend and the past, with _super powers_ who punched _Hitler_ just as much as _Captain Mother Fucking America_ did.”   
  
“Those are just comics-”   
  
“Right,” Tony moved to clasp his shoulder, “But those were real to everyone you’d be going to school with.”   
  
He hesitated, “What do you mean?”   
  
“You’re a legend.” Tony responded plainly, moving away from Peter to start cooking dinner, getting out a pot, “You really think anyone would be brave enough to make fun of you?”   
  
“ _Yes_ ,” he stood to help Tony dice up the tomatoes, huffing, “Yes I do think they’ll start making fun of me. I think they’ll make fun of the way I don’t know how to work a smart phone or a computer or anything, and I think they’ll treat me like a total dweeb because I _am_ a total dweeb.”   
  
Tony laughed, and moved to crush up then dice the garlic, “You’re not a total dweeb. Harley’s a total dweeb. Besides- I thought you already had a friend helping you with all of that.”   
  
“Harley is a total dweeb,” Peter tried to ignore the longing in his own voice. He really missed Harley, “But Harry has been helping me. But I won’t have Harry if I go to school, Mr. Stark. It’ll just be me, an old man in an eighteen-year-old’s body.”   
  
“Chin up, grandpa, at least you don’t have to deal with back pain.” 

“That’s what you think!”  
  
Tony laughed again, and shook his head, “That’s what I know. I do your health scans, remember? But if you thought you weren’t going to go to school with Harry, you’re an idiot.”   
  
“What?” Peter paused his cutting to look at Tony with wide eyes.   
  
“Mhmm,” Tony nodded, moving to grab the pasta from the pantry, “He’s the entire reason I brought it up. He’s worried about you- he thinks you need more social interaction. I’m inclined to agree.”   
  
“I get plenty of social interaction!”   
  
Tony turned to him, a hand on his hip, eyes sharp, and for a moment Peter’s mind was captured by an image of his Aunt May with the same look, “You talk to me, Abbie, and Harry. And _sometimes,_ you talk to Steve’s comatose body. That’s not exactly plenty of social interaction- plus the last one is just creepy.”   
  
“I-” He felt himself flush. Maybe that was true. “But that doesn’t justify high school!”   
  
“Yes it does.”   
  
“No! It doesn’t!”   
  
“Kid,” Tony sounded exasperated, and Peter forced himself to look at him. Tony’s eyes were fond, and all Peter could think about was his Uncle Ben, “You need to learn about the real world. Before you can do that, you need some background knowledge. As much as I think you could handle college level classes, I also think you need to understand the world a little more first. There’s no better place to learn about the world than high school- especially because you’ll be going to high school with Shuri.”   
  
Peter perked up, “Harley’s best friend Shuri?”   
  
He nodded, “Harley’s best friend Shuri.”

“You should’ve led with that,” he moved to help Tony set the table, “She’s been too busy to talk to me, but she promised she would.”  
  
“Yeah- some international crisis in Wakanda. But she’s always wanted the American high school experience. Despite having several PHD’s.”   
  
“Right.”   
  
“Her and Harley had planned to go into senior year together,” Tony paused, not looking at Peter, “But now, they can’t really. So…yeah. You start senior year with Shuri.”

Suddenly, Peter felt like he had been shot. 

Harley…Harley had been gone for a month, now. Peter had been awake for a month now. July had come and gone. It was August now. The thought felt…unreal. Harley was somewhere in the time stream now. He was starting senior year when it should’ve been _Harley_. Harley deserved to have a senior year. 

Peter tried to find his voice, “I…”  
  
“I know what you’re thinking,” Tony’s voice was quiet, and somber, “God knows I’m thinking it too.”   
  
He couldn’t speak, so he nodded in response. Tony continued, “But we can’t think about that right now. He’ll be back because he has to come back sometime. For now, you’ll start senior year, and you’ll make friends, and you’ll learn about the world, so that when Harley gets back you can make fun of him for being so behind on the times.”   
  
“Yeah,” Peter whispered, focusing on his hands, “Right. He’ll be back.”   
  
“And Steve will wake up.”   
  
“And Stevie will wake up.”   
  
“It’ll be okay.”   
  
Peter suddenly wasn’t so sure. He was grateful for Tony’s insurance that it would be okay, but it didn’t feel okay. He didn’t feel okay. He felt low and lonely and bad and alone. Steve still hadn’t woken up, and he missed Harley more than he missed anything in the world. 

He wasn’t sure that anything would be okay. After all- what happened if Harley never came back? If Steve never woke up? Was he just supposed to go on living in a world like this-

“Breath, Peter,” Tony's voice was soft, and it was at that moment that Peter realized that he wasn’t really breathing, “It will be okay. Do you want to know why?”  
  
His voice was a struggle to hear, “Why?”   
  
“Because Harley does get back in your time, right?” Peter nodded, and Tony took that as a key to go on, “Then that means he gets back. What month did he leave for you?”   
  
“He, he uh-” Peter breathed in, forcing himself to remember, “He got there in June, he left in December.”   
  
“Which means that he probably won’t be back till December- if the time streams are parallel.”   
  
Peter blinked. He hadn’t even thought about that. Because Harley had gotten there in late June- but he had _left_ in late June too. Meaning that if time passed the same… 

“Oh my god,” he whispered, “Okay. So we know he’ll definitely be back.”  
  
“Yes, we do,” Tony nodded, “And we know Steve will wake up, too.”

He blinked again and looked at Tony, urging him to continue, “Steve’s been on the verge of waking up. Your body adjusted quicker because you can’t thermoregulate normally, meaning that when we brought you into a warm, hot, environment to defrost you, you immediately kicked into overdrive. Steve _can_ thermoregulate, so this entire time his body has been working in overdrive to keep him warm enough that his serum could work. Now that he’s in an environment where he’s not in danger, his body needs time to adjust.”   
  
“Oh,” Peter nodded, “That makes a lot of sense. Like- a lot of sense.”   
  
“I know. We only realized after those documents you gave us about Steve and your biology,” Tony murmured, still calming Peter down, “So really, you thought of it.”   
  
“Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”   
  
“It’ll be okay.”   
  
“Okay.”   
  
Tony must have sensed he needed a second alone, because he tugged Peter into a hug then murmured, “I’m going to go get Abbie for dinner. Okay?”   
  
“Yeah,” Peter nodded, “Okay.”   
  
He watched Tony leave with a quiet mind. It didn’t stay quiet though. As soon as Tony was out of sight he collapsed into his dinner chair and put his head in his hands. This was all too much. Everything was too much. 

Harley was still gone. His perfect wonderful Harley was still gone. He was still in the past, fighting Nazis and technically with Peter. But right now his Harley wasn’t in his arms to help him breath or point out the flaws in his logic or calm him down. Right now Harley was probably eating rations around the fire with all their friends and everyone Peter loved. 

But it wasn’t everyone Peter loved. Now that he was in the present, he had to stay focused on the present. He couldn’t afford to dwell on the past. It wasn’t everyone he loved in the past- because Tony wasn’t in the past, and he did love Tony. Tony was a father-figure of the likes which Peter had never had before, even in Erskine. He was modern and caring and smart and funny and good. And Peter had never had an Abbie in his life- someone who acted as a little sister and snapped him out of his head and got him to laugh and smile and showed him bad TV shows and new music. Peter had Harry in the present- Harry who had been Peter’s first real friend here, who had been teaching him how to bake, and had been showing Peter the new world, and had just been everything Peter needed. 

Not everyone was stuck in the past. 

But some people were.

His Aunt May was in the past. His aunt with her smile, and her eyes, and her lavender perfume, and her love of Chinese food, and her soft Italian. His aunt who worked harder than god as a nurse and was going to join the war effort when she found out that Peter was too. His aunt who had lost her nephew and then her husband. When Peter had looked her up, it seemed she had remarried to a man named Daniel Susoa who was so, so kind and they had taken in several kids. However happy her life was, Peter knew his aunt and knew that there was no way that she hadn’t mourned him and Ben for the rest of her life. 

Howard was in the past. Howard who had taught him everything he knew about how to talk to girls, and had been his mentor in so many ways was in the past. He had a family before he died. A wife and a son. It was all Howard ever wanted. And yet- he was starting to understand that Howard had changed after the war. He wished so badly that he could’ve been in the past to stop that change from happening. To remind him that he had still got people.That he could be himself. He wished so badly he could’ve been there for him. 

Bucky was in the past. Bucky was _dead_ before he and Steve even got to the future. He thought of how much Bucky would’ve loved the new world. The way that people could love freely and in public. The way polyamory was more accepted here than it was in 1942, and he just felt sad. Broken. Bucky would’ve loved the future. He would’ve loved it so much. 

Peter was glad to be in the future. He was glad for the people he met and the life he would get to live. 

But he missed them so badly he thought he would die.

  
  


The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


“I think I miss them so much I could die,” Harley whispered to Peter, leaning into him, as they sat watch in the camp.

Peter startled, like he didn’t know Harley was going to talk, “Who? Your family?”  
  
“Yeah,” He tried to keep his voice even but he couldn’t manage it, and he looked to the sky, counting the stars, “I just… I’ve never been in a world without them. A time without them. Maybe I had a life before Tony and New York, and everything, but I still just- I miss them.”   
  
“You talked about Tony a lot when you first got here,” Peter said slowly, hesitantly wrapping an arm around his friend, “When you were delirious.”   
  
“Probably because he was what I was thinking about when I punched the time machine.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
They sat in silence, leaning into each other for a while. It was hard to think that it had already been two months here. Two months in this place- this time. He wondered if his family would be proud of him now. 

He was sure they would- after all, he was fighting Nazis. The ultimate bad guys of history. Tony used to say World War Two was interesting because there had never been a war that was pure good and bad. But there’s no such thing as a good Nazi- if you’re a Nazi, and you don’t see what you’re doing is wrong, then you’re bad. Simple as that. It was weird to think about now that he was personally fighting them. The good versus the bad. Never had a time in history been more clear cut. 

And here he was, contributing to the good. Fighting to end the Nazi regime. Fighting to make the world better. To make the world his world. The future. 

He missed the future. He missed the equality of the future. Here, everything was eggshells. Peggy, Bucky, and Steve were all quiet and secretive with their relationship. All three of them hated when they went to towns; they needed to in order to get rations, however, so they sucked it up. Harley had never seen Peggy look so uncomfortable to be seen as Steve’s girl and he knew that she was only uncomfortable with that because she was also Bucky’s girl. And Bucky…Harley pretended not to notice, but he always looked upset when they went into town and he had to see his man and his woman treat him like a friend and not like how they were in camp. The three normally were tangled in each other when they could be and it hurt them not to be. 

Not to mention how people treated Bruce and Thor, who refused to hide the fact that they loved each other. Maybe in another world they would’ve been the type of couple to sit in each other’s laps and be in each other’s arms constantly. But for now they settled for showing their affection by linking their pinkies and steeling their faces. Even a Norse God didn’t like getting spat at in the streets. 

And Peter- Harley was disgusted with the 40s. He had known this era was intolerant and awful and bad but watching Peter get asked to sit in the colored section because he was half-Mexican made Harley want to scream. He supposed it could be worse- if the towns they liberated knew Peter was Jewish too, the anti-Semitism that had been fostering could hurt worse. It was all unfair and he would’ve given everything he could to protect Peter from that. 

He would give anything to show all of them the future. Show them how things have gotten better. How things have changed. How the world was less…awful. Even though he knew that things weren’t as good as they could be, Harley wished these people he had grown to love could see how it got better. 

Steve, Peggy, and Bucky would’ve been open. Polyamory had been accepted for a decade. There had even been talks that New York state was going to allow polyamorus weddings. Thor and Bruce would’ve been able to be the type of couple to show off. And Peter- Peter could just be a teenage boy who didn’t have to worry about all of this. Who didn’t have to think about it. 

Harley would give anything to give them that. To give them that safety. “Harls?” Peter whispered, looking at him, “Are you okay?”  
  
Harley hadn’t realized his jaw was clenched, and he forced it to relax, “Just…thinking.”  
  
“About?”   
  
“This time,” He admitted slowly, leaning more into him, “It gets better, you know? Not for a while after this, but it does.”   
  
“You’ve told me a little,” Peter’s eyes were trained on him, and something about his gaze made Harley’s cheeks go warm. Peter did always look at him like he was an angel, “About how it gets so much better from here.”

“Yeah…I just…yeah.”  
  
“You said yeah twice.”   
  
“Did I?” His voice was airy and unfocused because for a second all he could see was Peter Benjamin Parker, “I didn’t notice.”

Peter just studied his face, then blurted, “You’re a really good person, you know that?”  
  
“I-”   
  
“No protesting. Not when I know for a fact that you’re a good person,” Peter was still studying him, watching him like he was the most interesting thing in the world, “It’s not just that you willingly want to fight even though you have a home you need to go back too. It’s like… you talk about your sister like she’s your hero. And- that Tony guy- you must’ve made him really proud.”   
  
“I don’t know about that,” He slowly admitted, “I know that he was proud of me in some ways. He thought I was smart, and clever, and he never failed to marvel at my ability to pick up skills but… Tony was a real hero. Like- you level hero.”   
  
Peter laughed dorkily, and offered a smile, “Am I how people measure hero levels in the future?”   
  
“No,” Harley smiled back, nudging his shoulder, “Captain America is. But- Tony is a hero.”   
  
“You’ve said.”   
  
“I know I’ve said,” He rolled his eyes then looked back to the world around them, “But…we got in a fight before I did all this. It was- it was kinda bad. Not- not to him maybe, but to me it was bad.”   
  
Peter’s hand found its way to his back, tracing patterns, “What was it about?”

“I…” He paused, hesitating, then looking at Peter, “I wasn’t ready to take on the mantle of a superhero and he- he didn’t want me too. He said I wasn’t ready- and- and I guess he was right. I think I needed this,” He motioned to the world around him, “To see that. But now that I am here I think I am ready to be a hero in my time. But…I just- it felt like he was disappointed in me. Like I wasn’t good enough. And I lashed out at my friend Shuri because of it- and-”  
  
“Breath,” Peter murmured softly, soothingly, “Just breath.”   
  
Harley hadn’t even realized that he was struggling to breath in. He offered a dry smile to Peter, “I guess I just…got into my head about all of this.”

“When you get back, it’ll be okay,” Peter whispered, “They probably miss you just as much.”  
  
With a pang of guilt Harley felt an emotion he couldn’t pin rip through him. What was that feeling? Why was it so warm? Why did he feel so- so- 

He breathed out, “Yeah.”  
  
“Hey,” he turned his attention to Peter, “Is there anything I can do to make it better?”   
  
“You are making it better,” Harley admitted, leaning into him, “You’re my friend, and that’s… that’s probably the best thing ever.”   
  
Peter blushed, “I’m not that great.”   
  
“I think you are.”   
  
A moment passed through them- a moment that Harley couldn’t pinpoint. Why couldn’t he just understand all the small moments and all the small feelings he felt? He didn’t know. He felt like there was a lot he didn’t know nowadays. He just… he wanted so badly to know everything about Peter. 

He blinked. He wasn’t sure where that thought came from.

“Here’s an idea,” Peter spoke softly, “You said you hated the radio here right?”  
  
“Yeah, it’s all stuff my gran would listen to,” He ignored Peter’s look, “Why?”   
  
Peter’s smile was so beautiful Harley thought that the moon was playing tricks on his eyes, “I know for a fact that Thor keeps a guitar in his tent. You know how to play?”   
  
“Yes,” Harley breathed, grinning, “Yeah I know how to play. I- if you steal it from him, I’ll play you a few of my favorite songs.”   
  
Peter didn’t respond, instead he stood and creeped his way over to Thor and Bruce’s tent, sneaking in and returning with a guitar. Harley grinned, “You’re a little sneak.”   
  
“To be fair,” He grinned back, “I learnt it by watching Peggy.”   
  
Harley took the guitar, and hummed, strumming the chords, “Let me just…” He tuned it up, a bit, then turned his attention to Peter, “what kind of song do you want?”   
  
“Sing me something…slow?”

“Lana or Hozier?”  
  
Peter blinked, “Uh…Lana.”

Harley smiled at him, “You won’t regret that.”  
  
He breathed in, fingers moving to pluck the chords, focusing on the notes of a song he knew well, “My baby used to dance underneath my architecture.”   
  
He let his fingers glide over the strings, allowing himself to breath in the music. It wasn’t his favorite Lana song, but he wasn’t about to sing about a war that Peter and he were still technically in, “To the Houses of the Holy, smokin' on them cigarettes.”   
  
A part of him was thinking about the war. How many people had they seen in their journey through Europe struggling. How many people had he seen fight until they couldn’t any more? How many people were fighting for the world to be better without knowing that it would get better? How many people were losing hope in the future? How many still believed it would be better? 

“My baby used to dance underneath my architecture,” He continued, regardless of the thoughts in his head, and he found himself closing his eyes, “He was cool as heck… he was cool as heck.”  
  
And how many people had he killed so far? He had thrown up the first time he killed a Hydra agent, but now it was something he had to do in order to fight. He wasn’t ever aiming for a kill shot, but when it was a choice to save peter or a Nazi agent, the choice was clear. He wondered if this was what war felt like to everyone else. 

He took a shaky breath, “And we were so obsessed, with writing the next best American record.”

Who was he now? Who was he in the face of this war? Of all the changes in it? He was someone stronger, and braver, and smarter. But who was he now? He was still Harley. 

“That we gave all we had 'til the time we got to bed,” He continued, letting Lana Del Rey flow over him as he sang, “'Cause we knew we could.”  
  
How many young people died in this war? How many people? How many? How many people died every single day? How many people were meeting their end as he was singing to Peter? This was war. Rhodey had once told him the worst part about being a soldier was that it affected everyone when they were called to duty. A long time ago, Harley might have thought that just applied to the soldier’s families. But it didn’t. Because a soldier was only called to duty when there was a war, and war affected everyone. 

“We were so obsessed with writing the next best American record,” His voice broke, “Because we were just that good…it was just that good.”  
  
He didn’t open his eyes until Peter spoke, “You…you have a beautiful voice.”   
  
“Thanks,” His lip quirked up despite himself, “I uh- I learned to sing for my sister.”   
  
“Sounds like you,” he met Peter’s eyes, and they were fond and soft, “Did you have another artist you wanted to show me?”   
  
Harley hummed then nodded, “Yeah. Hozier. Sure you wanna listen to it?”   
  
“Yes,” Peter said astutely, as if it was the most important statement he would ever make, “Yes. I want to listen to you sing.”   
  
This time, Harley kept his eyes on Peter, fingers slightly less graceful as he stumbled over the notes, but it felt right. It felt right to be watching Peter as he sang. He breathed out, “I had a thought dear, however scary, about that night, the bugs and the dirt.”   
  
Peter was glowing in the moonlight. This was a boy who had his entire life ahead of him- except not. Because Peter was destined to die in this war. He was still beautiful. He was still perfect. He was still amazing. 

“Why were you digging, what did you bury?” He breathed out the lyrics clumsily, studying Peter’s face in the light, “Before those hands pulled me from the earth?”  
  
Peter leaned in closer, and he looked to be studying Harley just as much as Harley was studying him. The thought made Harley shiver slightly. 

“I will not ask where you came from,” His voice was barely a whisper as he focused on Peter’s eyes, those warm, deep, brown eyes, “I will not ask, and neither should you.”  
  
His breath hitched, “Honey, just put your sweet lips on my lips- we should just kiss like real people do.”   
  
His hands had somehow forgotten to stop playing, as he stared into Peter’s soul. Peter was staring back at him with the same expression he knew he was wearing. Harlet pulled away and stood up just as Peter leaned in, and cleared his throat, “We need to switch shifts.”   
  
He offered Peter a hand, and Peter took it, leaning into him. Harley leaned back into him.

  
  


New York City, 2019

  
  


Peter leaned away from Harry, “God, you smell worse than the trench.”  
  
“Asshole,” Harry huffed at him, eyes narrowing, “I’ll have you know I smell like roses and sunshine and daisies.”   
  
On the bleachers near them, Peter heard Eugene give a small quiet huff of a laugh. One that Harry most definitely didn’t hear, or else he’d be beaming and trying to get the boy to laugh again. 

He had been going to school at Midtown Tech for a week, and he was honestly enjoying it more than he thought he would. When Tony first dragged him, kicking and screaming, to school he thought he would hate it. But he didn’t. He loved school. The future had unlocked so much that he never had access to in the past and Peter was relishing in it. 

It wasn’t only just learning. Peter had found some pretty amazing friends. Harry had introduced him to who he usually hung out with, but Peter didn’t really like those kids. They were all fake and mean and leaching off Harry for his money. Instead, Peter found a friend in Ned Leeds who had shown him a really cool movie series called Star Wars. The two were fast and instant friends, geeking out over this and that. Sometimes Ned was struck by the fact that Peter was _the_ Peter Parker from his childhood, but all of that was quickly forgotten when Peter struggled to use the latest Stark phone. 

Along with Ned, he became close with Michelle Jones- MJ. She had taught him a lot about the civil rights movement and social justice and how the world had grown since 1942. Peter could honestly say she was as cool and level-headed as Peggy, and sometimes he felt a pang of regret that the two couldn’t have met. Peggy would’ve adored MJ. It was a lot to think about, and Peter thought that if his heart wasn’t so focused on Harley, he might’ve gotten a crush on MJ. Alas, his heart was back in time, and MJ’s heart was currently devising a way to win Shuri over. 

Shuri had also joined his steadily increasing list of friends. She always had a slightly apprehensive feeling towards him, and Peter knew that was just because of Harley and everything that had happened there. They were best friends and Peter respected that. A lot of their conversations fell into two categories; ‘nerdy science’ or ‘my missing best friend was your boyfriend how wack is that?’ A weird balance, but one that fit them well enough. 

The last person he would consider a friend was Eugene Thompson. A part of him felt like in a different life, they would’ve had a different story, but here in this life, Euegene was quiet. A really quiet kid that preferred to isolate himself rather than talk to anyone about his problems. The only time Peter had seen the aftermath of said problems was his first day of school, when Eugene had absolutely blown up at Harry in the privacy of a classroom for one reason or another. 

The two were like magnets. They were always in each other’s orbits. Peter had a strong feeling that Eugene felt the same way Harry did but wasn’t ready to admit it. Overall, Peter had pretty good feelings about his first real venture into the modern world.

“-Peter!” Harry was waving a hand in front of his face, “Come back from the war, buddy, it’s 2019!” 

“You know,” Peter huffed, turning his attention to him, “One day, I’ll actually be having a war flashback and you’ll regret saying that to me.”  
  
His friend just shrugged, “I don’t think so. If anything, you’ll regret being in a war more than I’ll regret making fun of you for it.”   
  
“That’s true,” He glanced up at Eugene, “Hey- Eugene!”   
  
Eugene looked at him, face blank, “What, Parker?”   
  
“You know you can call me Peter right?”   
  
“Parker fits better.”   
  
“Okay,” Peter sighed, “Well, could you control Harry for a moment? He’s being annoying.”   
  
Eugene snorted, “Harry, stop being annoying.”   
  
Harry blushed and shot Peter a glare. Peter grinned back. He liked the way their friendship worked. 

“But Genie!” Harry whined, and leaned onto Peter’s shoulder, “Peter’s being an old man! He’s talking about war flashbacks.”  
  
“Both of you are insufferable,” Eugene muttered, but his voice was so fond that Peter was reminded of Bruce talking about Thor for a moment, “I hate you.”   
  
“No you don’t.”   
  
“Yes I do.”   
  
“No you don’t…” Harry grinned, “Flashy.”   
  
Euegene’s ears went bright red, “I’ll hurt you, Harrison Eun-Jeoyng Osborn!”   
  
“Woah, woah, woah,” Peter blinked, making the ‘time out’ motion Abbie had shown him earlier that week at dinner, “Flashy?”   
  
“I’ll hurt you too, Peter Parker!”

Harry laughed in response, “My childhood nickname for him was Flash.”  
  
“I thought it was Genie?”   
  
“No- that’s just my special nickname for him,” he winked at Eugene, who was growing redder by the second, “I’m the only one allowed to use it.”   
  
“Flash, huh,” Peter tried out the name, and hummed, “I like it. Hey- Eugene, can I call you Flash?”   
  
“No!”   
  
“Cool, thanks Flash,” He grinned. 

Flash glared at him, “I hate you.”   
  
“You hate everyone.”   
  
“That’s not true!”   
  
“Name one person you don’t hate.”   
  
Peter felt delighted as Flash glanced at Harry. Harry blushed, and Flash blushed right back, then turned his attention to the textbook in his lap, and said bluntly to Peter, “I think I liked you better in the pages of a comic book.”   
  
“Duly noted,” He grinned, “I’ll take that into account next time I get frozen in ice.”   
  
Flash just glared, opening his mouth to respond, “You-”   
  
A voice cut him off, the gym coach approaching Peter, “Mr. Parker- you’re being checked out. Get your bag, and go to the front office.” 

Peter felt a chill run down his spine. He was being checked out. The only reason he could think for being checked out…he bolted up, going to the locker room as fast as he could, hands trembling. Changing out of the gym clothes and back into his regular ones, he sprinted to the front of the school.   
  
Happy was waiting for him, face serious. 

“Is it-”  
  
“No, it’s not Harley,” came the immediate response, and Peter felt himself falter, “It’s Cap.”   
  
He froze again, the ice that had encased him for so long returning to his veins. Had something happened to his friend? Had Steve been taken from him just like the rest of the past? He tried to think. That was unlikely- the most likely option was that he was awake and wanted to see Peter. He breathed out, “Is he awake-”   
  
“Not yet,” Happy shook his head, guiding him towards the door, “Or rather not completely. We think he’s going to wake in the next thirty minutes or hour or so. He’s showing more brain activity, and the doctors have vacated the area so it’ll just be you when he wakes up, just in case he’s violent or unstable on waking.”   
  
“He won’t be,” Peter said firmly, slipping into the passenger seat, “He won’t be.”   
  
Happy just nodded, clearly a little worried for the younger older man. Peter couldn’t focus on him though. All he could feel was relief washing away that ice cold dread that had made itself a home in his body. Steve was waking up. His friend, his leader, his captain was waking up. Finally, he wouldn’t be alone in the future. Finally, someone that he knew and loved and trusted from years of working together on a battlefield would be with him. 

He loved his friends from the future, but God, did he miss his Avengers. 

Peter all but bolted from the car when they got to the tower, sprinting down the stairs and into the medbay. He breathed out when he saw Tony, “Is he-”  
  
“Not yet, kid,” the older man responded, not looking at him, but rather studying Steve’s health charts, “But he’s about to be. Go. Get in there.”   
  
He didn’t have to be told twice. The hospital ward was empty except for him and Steve, who had more color in him than he had had in weeks. Peter held his breath, and waited. 

And waited. 

And waited. 

What felt like an entirety passed before Steve opened his eyes and sat up with a groan, “God, my head.”   
  
Suddenly, everything Peter had ever planned to say to Steve to ease him into the future flew out the window. This was Steven Grant Rogers. This was the man who had fought beside him. The man who had timidly asked Peter and Howard to make his, Peggy’s, and Bucky’s matching rings for the trio’s anniversary. This was his friend. This was his Captain. 

All the words fled Peter, and he found himself throwing his arms around him, trembling, “Steve.”  
  
“Peter?” His voice was rough from sleep, and he sounded confused, but he hugged back, “Hey- kid- what’s wrong?”   
  
“I-” His voice caught and his mind blurted, “The banana’s taste different in the twenty first century and no one will fucking tell me why.” 

Steve blinked, and pulled back startled, “What?”  
  
“It’s- the food,” Peter breathed in, “Taste was fucking different in the twenty-first century. Higher quality. But the banana’s taste wrong. Like- it’s not the bananas we had back in 1942. It fucked me up the first time I ate one.”   
  
“We- the twenty-first century?”   
  
“Yeah,” He nodded, a little more relaxed now that his friend was awake, “Yeah, the twenty-first century.”   
  
“How did we-”   
  
“-get here? I asked that too,” Peter moved and sat on the edge of the bed, and ran a hand through his hair, “The serum kept us alive in the ice. Mine- mine allowed me to wake up faster, because of how raw and untreated it was when I got hit with it. Yours has always been a but more diluted so you didn’t have the same side effects I did. So.. it’s been two months and a week since they pulled us out of the ice. You just woke up.”   
  
“We- you’re fucking with me right?”   
  
He turned to look at him, and offered a small smile, “I’m not fucking with you. Welcome to 2019.” 

“I…” Steve swallowed, “This is the year Harley was from right?”  
  
Peter nodded, and Steve continued, “The war is over.”   
  
“The war is over. It’s...it’s been over, apparently.”

“The war is over,” Steve whispered, and looked at Peter with questioning eyes, “We survived the plane crash by landing in ice?”  
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“That’s- That’s wild.”   
  
“Careful,” Peter murmured, “You’ll sound like Harley.”   
  
“Harley…where is he?”   
  
“Not back from the past yet. The time lines work out so that they’re parallel.”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
“Yeah. Oh.”   
  
“This is…a lot to be hit with.”   
  
“I know,” he turned more to face Steve, “I really should’ve been more gentle with telling you but-”   
  
“No, don’t apologize,” Steve was serious, and taking a look around, a little suspicious of the highly advanced medical technology, “I’m glad you didn’t lull me into it. Bucky always said better a bullet than poison.”   
  
He winced at the mention of his lost boyfriend, “I…I don’t suppose…”   
  
“He’s still dead,” Peter had to look away. He couldn’t look at the grief on Steve’s face when he told him these things, “And…Peggy passed on a year ago. Dementia.”   
  
The two sat in silence for a moment, before Steve spoke again, “Bruce and Thor?”   
  
“Off world since the end of the war. Probably in Asgard. No one’s heard from them.”   
  
“Howard?”   
  
“Car crash,” Peter swallowed, “He has a son though. Remember that Tony that Harley loved so much?”   
  
Steve blinked, “No kidding.” 

“Not even a small joke,” He responded in turn, “My Aunt May’s gone too. Been gone awhile. She had a family though. I got in contact with some of them.”  
  
“Oh kid,” Steve breathed and pulled him into a hug, “I’ve got you, okay?”   
  
“I know,” he whispered, “I know you do. God- I’m so glad you’re awake now, Steve.”   
  
“Our world is gone,” Steve whispered back, soothing and soft, “But we’ve got each other.”   
  
“Yeah. Yeah- we’ve got each other.”   
  
They sat like that for a moment, remembering the past and the people they lost and relishing in the fact that they still had each other. Connected by Erskine, bonded by the serum, and family since the war. 

Steve pulled back first, “I can’t believe the first thing you said to me when I got to the twenty first century was that the bananas taste different.”  
  
And suddenly Peter was laughing Harder than he ever must have laughed. He was laughing so hard he was starting to sob. Somewhere along the line, Steve joined in on that laughter and the two boys out of time just sat there, laughing together.   
  
  


The Front Lines, 1942

  
Harley would be laughing if this were any other situation. 

But this wasn’t any other situation. He wasn’t sitting at home, engrossed in a book so good he got chills. He wasn’t watching a movie. He wasn’t watching this happen to anyone else. He was here. This was real. 

He had the pain coursing through his body to remind him of that. Hydra didn’t play games.

The mission had started like any other. Simple break in, get the prisoners out, break out. Somewhere along the line an agent had gotten the jump on him, throwing him to the floor and knocking him out with a hard kick. When he awoke again he was in immense pain as the Red fucking Skull used him as a punching bag, barking out things in German at his fellow Nazis. 

Harley couldn’t do anything. All he could do was sit there, in pain, tied up, no idea or plan to escape. He coughed blood as the Skull landed a hard hit to his gut. The scientist- Zola, his brain clawed for the name- was watching with curious eyes, looking at the tech he had taken off of him. 

“Halt,” The scientists voice was quiet and mad, and he turned to the Skull, “Ich möchte mit ihm sprechen.”  
  
The skull huffed, eyes narrowing, “Warum?”

“Diese Technologie,” Harley tensed. He didn’t know German but he knew that ‘technologie’ must be ‘technology.’ Zola had realized it was advanced, “Es ist fortgeschritten und unglaublich. Ich muss wissen, wie er es bekommen hat.” 

The skull turned back to Harley, and backhanded him hard, gripping his hair after a moment to force him to look at him, “You. Herr Zola has questions. Answer him and we will not torture you more.”  
  
“Fuck you,” The response came immediately, and he found himself spitting blood at the Skull’s face.

This was a mistake. Harley knew it the second he saw the other man wipe blood off his face, and he met Harley’s eyes. Those eyes were something that he would never forget. Intense. Dangerous. Terrifying. He barely had time to prepare himself for the blow before the Skull threw him to the floor, unhinged by the chair, and then he was being kicked. 

Something about this was worse than anything he had ever experienced before. The scream of pain that leapt from his throat was loud and terrible and he wasn’t even sure it was his own voice. But it was- and suddenly it was cut off again as Skull grabbed him by the neck, forcing him and the chair he was in up. Zola tsked, “Now, now, Herr Scmidt. Put him down. I can handle him.”   
  
“This filthy American,” He snarled, “Needs to learn that he is not the good Captain America. Unlike him, he is breakable.”   
  
“Yes, and there will be plenty of time for that,” The scientist turned to Harley, “Absolutely plenty of time to break him. It is a shame he is not ideal für den ablauf, isn’t it.”   
  
The skull just hummed, seemingly regaining all the composure he had lost while beating Harley, “It is.”   
  
“However,” Zola stepped forward and grabbed Harleys chin, forcing him to meet his eyes, “You are not like those Neanderthals you fight with, are you?”   
  
Having learned his lesson from the first beating, he wheezed, “I’m exactly like them.”   
  
“No, you are not,” Zola hummed, observing him, “You are no fool like them. This tech,” He motioned to all the tech they had stolen from Harley, “Is too advanced for that idiot Howard Stark.”   
  
Zola pulled away, pacing, and then moving to an object at the center of the room, opening it. Harley felt himself jerk back. He knew that- he knew what that was. He had seen it before. In the SHIELD files he used to scan over to Tony. He knew what that was. 

The Tesseract radiated power. Zola turned to him, and narrowed his eyes, “Do you know what this is, amerikanisch?”   
  
“No,” His voice was raspy and wrong, “No, I don’t know what that is.”   
  
Except he did. He knew exactly what that was. That was one of the most powerful objects within the known universe. That was one of the objects that were almost all consuming in energy levels. The Tesseract was dangerous. Unparalleled in level of intensity and power. The weapons made of the Tesseract could eviscerate an entire world, let alone a nation. Let alone a _person._

But what was it doing with the Nazi’? 

Not for the first time this month, Harley wished he had paid more attention in history class. And then it hit him- when Steve put the plane in the water, killing him and Peter, he had been putting it down because of the mass weapon on it. This was the weapon. This was the reason that Steve and Peter would die- this was the most powerful weapon the Nazis had. This was the ultimate weapon. This was- he could feel himself shake in the presence of it. The longer he thought about the power within that cube, the more fearful he became. 

He knew it was showing on his face when Zola snarled, “Do not lie, amerikanisch. You know exactly what this is, don’t you?”  
  
“I told you,” He swallowed dryly, trying to wash away the fear he felt at the Tesseract, “I don’t know what it is.”   
  
“Hmm,” The scientist scanned him then his tech then the cube, before turning to Skull, “Herr Schmidt, please punish our new friend.”   
  
This time Harley was more prepared, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t hurt. He wondered why the comic books didn’t talk about how bad it felt to be beat by someone with superhuman strength. He wondered why they didn’t talk about how the Red Skull was more than just the Skull- he had the same amount of strength as Peter. He was technically stronger than Steve. Harley let himself be beat, but he wouldn’t scream again. He wouldn’t let them win like that again. He was going to die if the Skull kept hitting him this hard. His organs would burst and he would slowly die out over several hours. Disembowelment without the blood of it. 

“That is quite enough,” Zola spoke calmly, “I will ask you again, amerikanisch, do you know what this is?”  
  
“Go to hell,” his voice was quiet and weak, “You’re evil. That’s where you’re going anyway. So jump on a train and go to hell early.”   
  
Zola just laughed, “There is no hell. Only those who are great and those who are weak.”   
  
Harley spit blood at the ground again, instead of responding. He needed an out. 

If he were Tony, he would already have a plan to get out. If he were brilliant he would know exactly what to say and do to get out of this situation. If he was better he could get out of here. If he was- 

“Call the guards. Show him to the cells. I’ll find out his secrets through his technology.”

Fuck. Fuck- he needed to think- he needed to think- 

The words flew out of him, “It’s called the Tesseract.”  
  
The room froze. Zola turned to him, “What?”   
  
“The object you’re using to power your weapons,” His words were slow and sure, biting on his pride, “It’s called the tesseract.”   
  
“How did you know-” Zola’s eyes narrowed, “We never said it was for weapons.”   
  
“But it is, isn’t it?” Silence met him, “You don’t know how to use it.”   
  
That was the wrong thing to say. Skull drove a fist into his face and he heard a crack as his cheek bone was lit on fire with pain. He screamed, but shouted out, “I’m right, aren’t I?”   
  
“Call the guards. He does not know anything!” 

"Wait," Harley tensed hard, ignoring the pain, and looked up at the man, "Let me help."

The Nazi scientist laughed, "Help? You fucking Americans. Always so brash. You think I am a fool?"

"No, I don't think you're a fool," He swallowed his pride. He was doing this for Peter, "I think you're a genius. I also think you have no idea how to work that core in any way that can harness it. And I know that I do know how to harness the power."

The room fell silent. He almost thought the red skull would beat him again. To his surprise, he turned to Zola and spoke, “Bist du absolut dumm?”

“Was? Ich bin nicht dumm,” Zola blinked, eyes narrowing, “Ich bin der klügste Wissenschaftler der Welt.”

“Dann benimm dich so. Finde was er weiß.”

Zola turned as red as Harley knew the Skull would one day be, "How would you know anything?"

"I know that that's from space," He said firmly, raking his brain from the Tesseract, "I know it’s the most powerful energy source that this world will ever see. I know that it’s one of five of these energy sources. I know that it originated in Norse mythology, and its home was originally Asgard. I know how to use it. If you let me-"

"And why," Zola snarled, "Would we trust an American?"

Harley felt the bile rise in his throat, "I'm an inventor before I'm an American."

If he could just access the Tesseract, he could elicit an explosion big enough to run. If he could- if he could stabilize the core for moments he could potentially cause the Tesseract to work like the world’s most powerful EMP and fry out every single weapon in the base. He held his breath. Zola considered him. 

“Untie him,” He told the Red skull, “And leave us. I can handle him if he gets out of line.”   
  
Skull grunted but obliged, shooting a look at Zola, “Ich will die Waffen, wenn du fertig bist.”   
  
Just like that he was untied and alone with Zola. He stood, stumbling towards the Tesseract, but stopped at the control panel. He studied it, then said quietly, “You’re an idiot. Using these chords here with this metal- you need vibranium or else you won’t be able to properly conduct the power.”   
  
Zola scoffed, “Really? The guns work well enough without it.”   
  
“But you need to maximize its power,” He said slowly, brain aching, “And to do that you need to rewire this key board. You’re barely siphoning any of the power.”   
  
Zola huffed, but obliged. The two worked in silence, Harley making sure to include loopholes that would allow him to enact the power as an EMP. He didn’t know what kind of effects an EMP of this size would cause, but he knew that most vintage technology was unaffected by EMP’s. Hydra however were going to be fucked over by their modernity. All that modern tech…this EMP would allow him for the perfect means to escape as well as completely erasing Hydra’s weapon division. 

He shuddered to imagine what would happen when the weapons program got back online, however. Or- if there were multiple locations storing their weapons. But he couldn’t think about that. He needed to focus on what he could. What was in front of him. 

He crossed his wires. He held his breath. 

He connected them. 

The expulsion was loud and forceful. He was lucky enough to have turned his hearing aides into multipurpose ones, and switched them to earplugs. His senses were still distorted. He was dizzy. The walls were crumbling around him, and his wrist felt like it was in the wrong position. He jerked to his feet, using his blood-stained shirt as a rag, and ran. He ran past the rubble, and as the guards noticed and tried to shoot him down he was pleased to find that their guns blew up back in their faces.

He ran. He needed to keep running. He didn’t know where he was but he knew he needed to get as far away as he could. Exhaustion was starting to set in but he wouldn’t stop sprinting. He couldn’t. He felt his body lurch and struggle like it was going to throw up but he pushed through, on shaking legs, and forced himself forward. 

It was nightfall by the time he saw lights. He couldn’t be sure what those lights were from but he took a guess. He stumbled towards it. 

Bucky looked up from where he was keeping watch. He shouted something Harley couldn’t hear. The world was going fuzzy and his head was pounding. He wasn’t sure where he was or what was happening. He breathed out softly. He was back in camp. 

The others jerked out of their tents all shouting and speaking at him- Peter jerked forward, eyes concerned, clearly having been crying. Harley collapsed into his arms, and shakily reached up to turn his hearing aides back to their regular mode.

“-’re alive,” Peter was whispering into his hair, “I thought I lost you.”  
  
“You didn’t lose me,” Harley slurred, “I came back to you.”   
  
“You came back to me,” Peter sobbed, “God you came back to me.”   
  
He felt weak and feverish and horrible, but he looked up at Peter and whispered, “I took out as many of their weapons as I could. Tried to take out their main powersource. It’s how I got away.”   
  
“Oh Harls,” Peter brushed a hand over his face, and offered a wobbly weak smile, “I don’t care about any of that right now- You’re here.”   
  
“I’m here,” He whispered, eyes fluttering shut, “I’m not leaving.”   
  
“You’re here.”   
  
“Safe.”   
  
“You’re safe,” Peter kissed his head, “You’re safe.”

And suddenly Harley was laughing, tears overflowing, “It hurts so much, Peter- I’m in so much pain.”  
  
“I’m so sorry love,” Peter whispered into his hair, “But I’ve got you.”   
  
“I fried all their weapons,” Harley told him with a wheezy laugh, “I broke them apart and got them to blow up on themselves. I caved in the base. I spat blood into Red Skulls face- I was fucking insane.”   
  
Peter just held him tighter, “You’re not insane. You’re amazing. You’re a hero.”   
  
“No, I’m a little insane,” Harley laugh-cried into Peter’s chest, “It hurts. Everything hurts.”   
  
Peter held him even tighter, and Harley melted like butter into his arms. This boy- this amazing boy- was here. He was holding Harley. Harley was okay and safe and in Peter’s arms. He was okay because he was with Peter. He was with Peter. And how wonderful it was to be with someone he loved.

He pulled back to offer a wet smile at Peter and then leaned forward. 

When he was a child he used to read about kissing. He would read about how people kissed to show love. How passionate and loving and soft it could be. He knew that those kisses weren’t supposed to be real. After all, what could be so magical about two lips pressed together? Now he understood what was so magic. 

It was in how soft Peter’s hands were. How they cupped Harley’s battered and bruised face and held him close like he was the only think in the world. How Peter’s thumb swiped over his not hurt cheekbone, like he was memorizing the feeling. 

It was how they were pressed together. Standing pressed so close that Harley could feel how hard Peter’s heart was racing. How they tangled together. The way Harley’s hand was clutching at the back of Peters shirt when he knew Peter would never disappear. 

It was how chapped their lips were. So rough, but the kiss was so gentle. So forceful. It was the perfect combination of both- it was how this was everything that had been building up between them for three long months, and how this held everything in it. They were both being so, so soft but it was strong and there and warm and good. 

Harley used to think that there was no such thing as a perfect kiss. No kiss could be perfect. No one could have a kiss that swept the breath from their lungs and made them blush and feel fireworks. That wasn’t the real world. 

But this was real. 

Peter’s hands were real. Peter’s chest was real. Peter’s heart was real. Peter’s lips were real. The feelings that each of these things brought in him were real. This was real. God this was real- this kiss. The most perfect kiss that the world had ever known was real. 

He pulled back to whisper against Peter’s lips, “Peter.”   
  
Peter responded by kissing him one more time, and just like before it was everything that Harley thought wasn’t real. It was the world. It was everything. It was the second kiss Harley Keener ever had and it was the only type of kiss he ever wanted again. It was all of the things that were so perfect about their first kiss but _more._

Peter pulled back this time, “I’ve got you.”   
  
And Harley couldn’t help but kiss him again. It didn’t matter that this was 1942, and the war was raging around them. It didn’t matter that all the other members of their camp were looking at them with fond eyes and Howard was whooping. It didn’t matter that Harley would have to leave. It didn’t matter that Peter was going to die in the war. 

Maybe all of these things would matter later. Maybe all of these things would matter the second they pulled away from each other again. Maybe the weight of all these things were going to tear them apart. But none of that mattered right now.

All that mattered was this kiss. 

All that mattered was Peter’s lips on Harley’s and Harley’s lips on Peter’s. 

All that mattered was Peter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fdsjkafhasjf hurg 
> 
> tell em what you think!! hit me up at Peachy-Keener on tumblr


	4. when the world was at war before (we just kept dancing)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Did she yell at you?”
> 
> “Briefly.”
> 
> “Why?”
> 
> “Because I said I wanted to stay here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to Sarah! You're really awesome and I thank you so much for reading my fic. 
> 
> alright y'all this is like... huge. this chpater is so long and i am sorry. Next chapter would be uhhhhhhh shorter I promise.

The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


“Tell me again what you saw,” Peggy hadn’t stopped pacing for the week that he had been back. She was tense, and that made Steve tense, and that made Bucky tense. “You’re sure?”

Harley had found himself sat directly in Peter’s lap, with Peter burying his face in between his shoulder blades, like he was afraid if he wasn’t touching Harley he would disappear again. “I’m completely sure. The technology- it’s advanced. Not as advanced as I’ve seen, but it is advanced. It’s powered by-”  
  
“The Tesseract,” Thor grumbled, eyes serious and not at all the Thor that Harley had grown to love. Seemingly, he was the one taking the news of the Tesseract the worst, “I had sensed its power- but it always flares up any time the world goes through a cosmic event. I had thought-”   
  
He looked at Harley. Harley swallowed. He had thought that Harley landing in the past had been a cosmic enough event to send the power of the Tesseract into tiny sparks and cosmic energy. It was his fault that Thor hadn’t taken the shift in power seriously enough to investigate it. No- he couldn’t think like that. He really couldn’t. He let out a shaky breath and opened his mouth to speak, but Peter cut him off.   
  
“So how do we fight it?” Harley felt a pang of worry sink into his gut. Peter had been really shaken by everything that had happened- and that was without thinking about the kiss. “There has to be a way to fight it.”   
  
Howard looked at Harley with quizzical eyes, “How did we fight it?”   
  
“I-” All the eyes in the camp were suddenly on him, and he felt his skin crawl, “It’s not that simple. I can’t tell you-”   
  
“You need to tell us,” Bucky’s voice was firm, “So we can win. Normally I wouldn’t ask this of you Harley but-”   
  
“It’s not like _that,”_ He curled in on himself slightly, and let out a shaky breath, “I can’t tell you what happens. I can’t tell you how you guys beat it. I can’t tell you that or- or else.”   
  
“Or else what?”   
  
He glanced up. He made eye contact with Peggy. He saw it click in her mind, what was going to happen. That the Tesseract wouldn’t be beaten unless someone died. Someone had to die to put it to rest. Someone that she loved and she _knew that._ The look in Peggy’s eyes told him everything that he already knew. 

She grew serious, “Everyone out.”   
  
“What?” Bucky blinked, looking at her, “Doll-”   
  
“Out, Sergeant.”   
  
The use of the title made the group around them fall silent. Peggy never referred to her men by their titles. She always hated having to do that because it reminded them of the war going on around them. Reminded them that everything was life or death and maybe they found love in the battlefield but they may not be able to keep it. Harley glanced down as people filed out, because he knew that that’s what she was thinking about. 

“You too, Peter,” Her voice was sharp, calculating, “Let him go and get out.”  
  
Peter shook his head. Harley shifted to face him, “I’ll be there in a moment, okay? If you go to our tent, I’ll be there in just a moment.”   
  
“...Okay.” Peter mumbled after a moment of hesitation, and stood up, looking at him with slightly haunted eyes. 

Harley felt himself wince as he left. That was his fault. He did that to Peter by not getting out sooner. He did that when he chose to fight. He swallowed his guilt and turned to Peggy, “I’m sorry.”  
  
“Which one?”   
  
He hesitated, “Both.”   
  
“No,” Peggy’s voice broke, and she looked much less composed than she had seconds ago, “No. I can’t lose both of them.”   
  
He tucked his knees into his check, pressing his face into them, “Peter too.”   
  
“You mean- he-”   
  
“Yes,” He swallowed a sob, “He does.”   
  
“But-”   
  
“He’s known as one of the great tragedies of Hydra,” Harley could barely breathe, trembling with things he had wanted to talk about since he got there, “Because Hydra turns rouge in the last days of its life, and breaks away from Nazism to attack the world and bring it under Red Skull’s rule. He dies in a plane that Steve takes down to the ice in order to stop bombs from going off in New York. It- it works, but they both die in the process.”   
  
Peggy sat down, looking like she had been shot. She pressed a hand to her mouth, “And they-”   
  
“They never find their bodies,” He blurts, jerking into the words that he had been wanting to say all along, “They die in the ice and they never find their bodies. Howard searches for them for twenty years, neglects and beats his son in drunken fits of rage because he can’t find them. He compared Tony- my mentor, his _son_ \- to them constantly, and searched for them even more. Bruce and Thor stick around three years after the war before deciding to go back to Asgard and they’re never seen from or heard from again. You stay Howard’s friend till the end of his life, and you identify his body when he dies in a car wreck. You help raise Howard’s son- and eventually, you meet me again, but the time you do, you barely remember anything-”   
  
“But Jamie,” she whispers, voice weak, “what happens to Jamie.”   
  
He swallows, “He dies in the line of battle a few days before Steve and Peter.”   
  
“So I- what do I do after that?” 

“I don’t know,” He lies, then swallows again and shakes his head, “But I wasn’t here the first time around. Maybe now that I am-”  
  
Peggy looks up at him, and Harley finds himself horrified to see tears in her eyes. He’d never seen her cry before this moment. It hits him like a sucker punch that this is going to destroy her. The feeling sits in. It’s not that this is going to destroy her- it’s that it already had. She was being faced with the harrowing news that the two men who she loved were going to die and she would be left alone. “Yes. You were here.”   
  
“I- What?”   
  
“Howard and Bruce,” she spits, rushing from depression to anger in seconds. “Talk about how time loops. You came here once meaning you were here when it changed.”   
  
“But I-”   
  
“You’re going to leave. Aren’t you?”   
  
This was something he dreaded. He hated this- this feeling like he couldn’t do anything. And it hit him like a pile of bricks. 

Did he have to leave? What if he _didn’t?_

If he didn’t leave, when Bucky Barnes fell off the train, he could catch him with his suit. If he didn’t leave he could track down Steve and Peter’s last location and pray that they were still alive under the ice. Fuck that- if he didn’t leave, he could completely reverse the bombs because he knew how. He and Tony had spent weeks learning all they could about Hydra’s weapon systems from old files. He knew he could fix this. 

He could stay. 

He could stay and help Peter survive. If he stayed, then Peter and Steve wouldn’t die. He and Peter could grow old together, and be together, and stay together for as long as he could. Steve would be with Peggy, and if he saved Bucky, then Bucky would stay with her too. Howard would never turn into the abusive drunk that Tony had known him to be and he’d be okay. Everything would be fine-

“I could stay,” He finally whispered, looking up at her, “I’m going to stay this time. I’ll set this all right and I’ll stay. I’ll help fight and I’ll _save them._ Don’t you see Peggy? I can help- I can save all three of them and then- then- then things will be _better-_ you all can live to a future where it’s _better!”_ _  
_ _  
_ “You aren’t strong enough too.” Peggy just looked at him with anger in her eyes, “You think could you stay? You _really_ think you could you abandon the life you’ve known and stay?”   
  
“I- yes. Yes.” He could do it. He could do it for Peter. 

“You need to talk to Peter about this,” His answer had changed something in her. Suddenly she was sinking into numbness. There was a tone in her voice- almost broken and robotic, but mainly just business. “You need to talk to Peter about this. Not about his- not about what happens. But about you staying. He might have some choice words about it. And even more- let’s not focus on their deaths. Let’s find ways to save them. _Without_ your involvement. I won’t risk their lives based on you.”   
  
He tried not to let it sting him, “It’s not his choice. I’m staying-”   
  
“Harley!” Her voice was a firm shout, and her accent rang clear in his name, and suddenly he got the gut feeling that saying anything more would make his chance of survival very very low. “You aren’t thinking about this carefully! I am! I am going to find a way to save them without taking you from a family you love!”   
  
He tried not to flinch. She breathed out shakily, eyes hard, “From now on you’re benched.”   
  
“What-”   
  
“You’re not allowed to fight,” Her eyes were blazing and hard and it was moments like this that Harley remembered that she founded an organization meant to protect the world. This wasn’t Peggy Carter, childhood hero of Tony Stark. This was the woman who would lead an organization to their glory days and protect the world from threats as of yet unheard of by man. “You can’t anyway because of your ankle and wrist. You’re not allowed to fight. You’re being benched, and you will be working with Howard and Bruce in the labs from now on, finding a way home and making plans to have all three men you just told me die survive. Are we clear?”   
  
“Yes,” He swallowed and looked up at her, “Yes, we are clear.”   
  
She nodded once and then said firmly, “Now go.”   
  
He didn’t have to be told twice. He hobbled out of the tent, and was relieved to find everyone in their own tents. No one was just hanging about in the camps, clearly understanding that Peggy had needed to talk to him in the utmost privacy and seriousness. He staggered to his own tent.   
  
Peter was waiting on the bed that they had taken to sharing in the last week in his sleep clothes. “What’d she need?”   
  
“Just,” He swallowed, “Information that I had to give about the future.”   
  
“Are you okay?”   
  
No, he really wasn’t. It had seemed so clear to him in the moment- the idea of staying. But now… now all it made was a hot lump in his throat that wouldn’t go away, “I don’t know.”   
  
“Did she yell at you?”   
  
“Briefly.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“Because I said I wanted to stay here.”   
  
Peter went silent for a second, then breathed out, “Can I tell you about my family?”   
  
He faltered. He wasn’t expecting that. He slipped into his own sleep clothes and curled into Peter’s side. He nodded slowly, as they both shifted to lay down, tangling into each other. 

“My uncle was my hero,” Peter reached across to trace a hand over his jaw. He had stubble now, a feat he never managed to achieve in the future. Peter’s voice was very soft, “His name was Ben. He and my father were twin brothers. He used to tell me that they got in all sorts of trouble. They were born in 1905- God, they were… they were a lot to handle. Queens, born and raised, half-Mexican, half-Jewish, because the world was weird. And- and they were best friends. They did everything together. Hell- they got their first automobile by saving up every single penny they had from the time they were five to the time they were fifteen. They did everything together.”  
  
He breathed out, “And then one day, when my dad was 16 he met this girl. Her name was Mary Fitzpatrick. Jewish and Irish and a spit fire. He loved her in moments and- and my uncle Ben used to say he loved her the same amount she hated him. But they grew close. Then like a switch my mom slowly stopped hating him and- and started loving him. They were married at eighteen. And had me at nineteen. But- things were rough. And they were only nineteen- they were barely adults.”   
  
“They died,” He murmured, looking at Harley with tears in his eyes, “When I was four years old. 1928. Spanish flu. My uncle and my aunt May took me in. And they raised me and loved me like their own. Even when the Depression hit and everything was hard, they never regretted taking me in and loving me. My aunt forced me to stay in school, and we made do with whatever we could. We moved in with several families and did all we could to stay afloat. And then something happened-” he took a shaky breath, “I got an internship with Erskine the same year I graduated high school. And I got bit by one of the only test subjects and references Erskine had for his improved serum.”   
  
Harley knew this. He didn’t know why Peter was telling him this. He knew this. But Peter choked out the words that made him realize what he was trying to tell him, “And my uncle Ben- my hero- and I got into a fight. We got into the worst fight I’d ever been in with him because he didn’t think I could do this. He told me that- with great power comes great responsibility. And he wanted me to be fourteen a little longer. He wanted me to have the option to be fourteen a little longer. And I thought he was crazy because with this I could finally help people. He just- he wanted me to remember that these powers were supposed to be a responsibility.   
  
“He died the next night,” He whispered out, “A muggar gone wrong. And the worst part was that I had let the muggar go from a fight in the alley way earlier that day. It made me realize that he was right. Great power comes with responsibility, and if you don’t try to stop the bad things before they happen, those bad things, they happen because of you.”   
  
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Harley couldn’t breath. What was Peter trying to say here?

“But that doesn't apply to this,” Peter’s eyes were intense and wet, “Because the future is set in stone. You were always going to come to the past, and you can’t control what happens in the future, because if anything was going to change you would have disappeared. But you didn’t disappear. You stayed. Meaning-”  
  
“-Meaning I’m in a time loop,” Harley breathed out and suddenly his eyes were wet too, “Meaning that in every time I come to the past and I go back to the future because there’s no further mention of me in the past.”   
  
“Exactly.”   
  
“I can-”   
  
“I don’t want you to change it,” Peter admitted slowly, tracing over every part of Harley he had access too, “I want you to go back to the future. I want you to live the life you have there. And I want you to remember me.”

“I will _always_ remember you, Peter.”   
  
“I know.”   
  
“Are you sure I can’t-”   
  
“Yes. I’m sure you can’t stay.”

“Even if I want too?”  
  
“Even then.”   
  
“Do you want me to stay?”

That was the question that broke Peter because suddenly he was crying and kissing all over Harley’s face, “Yes I want you to stay. I want you to stay so badly. I want you to stay and I want to grow old with you and I want to have kids with you and I want to live a life with you Harley- yes, I want you to stay.”   
  
And then Harley was crying too, capturing Peter’s lips in a hard kiss, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”   
  
“You can’t stay- but God, I wish,” It hit him like a brick that Peter thought he was apologizing for the fact he was leaving and not the fact that Peter was going to die, “I wish you could stay.”   
  
He swallowed his sobs and kissed Peter hard again, “So let’s wish. Let’s- let’s plan what our future would be if I could stay.”   
  
“We’d-” Peter sniffed, and pressed his face into Harley’s neck, “We’d live together.”   
  
He nodded and pressed his own face into Peter’s hair, both of them clutching at each other, “We’d live together and when we were ready we’d make the ultimate commitment we could, no matter if it were legal.”   
  
“And then we’d have a son-”   
  
“He’d look like you. He’d look like you and we’d name him Benny, after your uncle.”   
  
“And he’d be perfect, and we would be together forever. Forever.”   
  
“Forever and always.”   
  
They sat there, tangled together all night, talking about a future that they would never have. A little house somewhere away from the city or an apartment in Queens they could hide in. A wedding ceremony only for them and their friends where they’d be in their nicest clothes and they would go away on Howard’s private yacht for a year and just enjoy the feeling of each other. A son who would play baseball with Harley and learn science with Peter. A daughter who would have the personality of a spitfire and the fight in her to prove it. 

They were making plans for the future. A future Peter would never be able to see. A future just out of Harley’s reach. And it was horrible and bitter and it hurt him more than anything, but he loved it. He loved picturing a rooftop garden he could paint on and Peter’s strong hands working to cure the world. He loved imagining a future where they were together, tangled up and in love, and with each other till the end of their lives. He loved picturing this future. 

A future that Peter would never experience. A future that Harley would never see. A future that they would never reach.

  
  


New York City, 2019

  
  


“I honestly didn’t think I would ever reach the future,” Steve admitted slowly, “So while I appreciate the offer, Tony, I just don’t even know what I’d do in a college.”

Peter whipped his head to Tony, like he was watching a tennis match. To his immense enjoyment, Tony looked even more annoyed at Steve’s hesitance to integrate to the real world, “You, sir, need to get out of the house.”  
  
“But I don’t think college is the way to do it,” Steve responded, prompting Peter’s head to swivel back to him, “Besides, I could be a lot more help if I joined SHIELD- you know, Nat says-”   
  
“I know what Natalia says!” Tony threw his hands up in the air, “And you realize that’s her _job,_ right?!” 

“That’s not-”  
  
“Steve! Listen, Cap,” Tony huffed and crossed his arms, “I’m on your side here. I will support you no matter what- but I think before you go into the clutches of a sketchy underground organization that doesn’t have to answer to legalities because my dad and aunt Peggy were anything but stupid, I think you need to do what Peter’s doing.”   
  
Both men turned to Peter and he yelped, “Hey- leave me out of this!”   
  
“And I’m not Peter,” Steve looked back to Tony, “I think I would be of use more if I could fight and do some good in the world.”   
  
“Listen, Cap, like actually listen to me,” Tony rubbed his temple like he was dealing with the most annoying child in the world, “You can do good in the world- hell, I would _love_ it if you did good in the world. God knows we need some good- but you can’t be _uneducated_ in those good choices. You need to learn about the world a little more before you commit yourself to anything.”   
  
“Listen, if SHIELD was Peggy’s-”   
  
“-And my father’s,” He spat the word father like venom, and met Steve’s eyes, “but they haven’t been in charge in a long, long time, Steve. You have to understand- something’s fishy about it and you need to learn more about the world more than you have. Make some friends!”   
  
“I have a friend!”   
  
Tony gave him a look, “Your only friend is a nineteen year old boy from your past.”   
  
“You know, he’s kinda right,” Peter swatted away Steve’s overdramatic kicked puppy look, “I haven’t seen you leave the tower yet. And even more than that, Steve, I have friends. I got like…five friends.” 

“I have more than you,” Steve squawked, “I have you-” He pointed at Tony, “And I’m pretty good friends with Rhodey, and me and Nat talk sometimes.”  
  
“Okay, first of all,” Tony huffed again, like an annoyed dad, “I am not your friend, I’m your babysitter. My husband is only your friend because he has all the Captain America and Co.’s comics hidden under his childhood bed. And Natalia is not your friend, she’s your recruiter trying to get you to join a shady-”   
  
“-Underground organization that doesn’t have to answer to legalities because Howard and Peggy were anything but stupid,” Steve mocked, before shaking his head, “I don’t see why you hate it so much.”   
  
“I don’t hate it!” 

Peter interjected, “I can vouch for this one, you do kinda hate it.”  
  
“There’s just something not right about it,” Tony looked at Peter then at Steve and deflated, “Okay. New plan.”   
  
“New plan?” Steve perked up like a golden retriever puppy.

“New plan.” Tony nodded, and met both of their stares with a look that reminded Peter so much of Harley Keener his chest ached hard, “How about this: All three of us do some deep digging into SHIELD while Steve also bulks up his drawing portfolio so he can apply to some art college and do something he actually likes when he’s not saving the world. Deal?”   
  
“Sounds fair to me,” Steve stood and leant over the counter, raising an eyebrow at Tony, “But how did you know I’d try for drawing? I’ve been mostly painting since I got to the future.”   
  
“Because,” Tony sounded annoyed and moved away from the counter to move to the fridge and pull out a juice box, “My dad was practically in love with you and went on and on about everything you did.”   
  
Peter froze. Steve froze. Only Tony continued talking, “It was honestly so annoying- he made me take drawing lessons for years because he wanted me to be just as good as you. And listen, Steve, you’re nice and all, but I never got his obsession. It was just annoying.”   
  
Peter had known that Howard was a bad father. He knew that something had happened between Howard and Tony that he would never be able to fully comprehend. Just from the little pieces of information that Tony had given him over the months that he had been living there. But come on- Tony had to be joking. Howard wasn’t obsessed with Steve. 

Steve seemed to be also thinking about this, “Wait. Pause. Go back.”  
  
“Hmm?” Tony looked at them, “To which part? To my dad and my mom or the drawing lessons that ended with a pencil on fire?”   
  
“Howard was in love with me?”   
  
Peter saw realization click in Tony’s head, and he shrugged, “He sure loved you more than he loved me or my mom. Called it one of his great tragedies in life that he never realized before the end of the war.”   
  
“What?”   
  
“Yeah,” Tony nodded, “It was like- his favorite topic to grouch about when he was drunk and angry. Course, he never did it around Aunt Peggy, even after she found Aunt Angie.”   
  
Steve winced. Peter knew that it was the mention of Angie Martinelli, the woman Peggy would end up settling down with after he disappeared. They had several talks about his feelings around the matter as he processed his grief of losing both Peggy and Bucky. Steve was immensely grateful that Peggy had moved on but so, so destroyed that he wasn’t the one that got to spend the rest of his life with her. 

Peter cleared his throat, “But like- you don’t mean that seriously right? I mean-” He glanced to Steve then back to Tony, “Howard may have been bi, but he never made a move on Steve or anyone else.”  
  
Tony shifted uncomfortably, “Yeah, well, I don’t exactly know all the details. I just know that at some point after the war he realized some things and was stuck on it ever since.”   
  
“Oh.”   
  
“Yeah.”   
  
“Is that why you were so- uh- icey-”   
  
“No, that is not why I was a little bitch to you the first few days of your awakening,” Tony rolled his eyes like Steve had asked the most stupid question ever, “That was all the years of childhood trauma, not my dad’s psychological issue. And also the fact my husband thinks you’re hot.”   
  
“I can’t control what Rhodey thinks!”   
  
“Yes but you could drop the puppy look! That’s how I got him to fall in love with me in the first place!”   
  
“What puppy look!”   
  
“Ladies, ladies,” Peter interjected, mimicking something he’d seen on TV once with Ned, “You’re both pretty. Can we get back to the topic at hand?”   
  
Tony blinked, “Which topic?”   
  
“The SHIELD topic,” He motioned to Steve, “We’re investigating it right? Because I wanna be done with the investigation by tomorrow because after that I’m booked full.”   
  
Steve snorted and looked at him, “With what? Nerd club?”   
  
“Not nerd club,” Peter pouted, then said proudly, “Ned bought a 3,000 piece LEGO Death Star and I bet him we could build it in a night and if we can we’re gonna try to build the Millennium Falcon but like- one that actually works.”   
  
“So not nerd club, just nerd stuff.”   
  
He pouted again, “You’re mean.”   
  
“I’m not mean,” Steve grinned, “I’m funny.”   
  
“You’re not funny either,” Tony deadpanned, and hummed, “Now come on boys, down to the lab.”   
  
Peter loved the labs. He really did- in his mind, there was nothing better than a place that was wholly devoted to research and understanding and invention. He had loved the labs in 1940 when he worked with Dr. Erskine, and he loved the labs in the future where he got to see all the high-tech stuff that Tony made. Something about the process of research and discovery were absolutely amazing and he honestly didn’t know what he’d be without it. 

Watching Tony work was also a favorite hobby of his. Not because he liked watching Tony work, but because he saw so much Harley in how Tony figured out problems. He tried not to focus too hard on Harley these days, wanting to take in the world around him, but when he saw how Tony’s brow crinkled or his hands skidded over his tools or the way his eyes narrowed when he saw a problem he didn’t like it was hard not to think of his Harley. His Harley that was two months away from making his way back. His Harley who had every single one of Tony’s tics and more. 

He hummed and grabbed a laptop, pulling up the section of files that Tony had given him to look through. Steve had been given the paper files much to his annoyance and Tony’s enjoyment. The trio worked in silence for what felt like hours in the calm, safe environment of the lab. 

Tony looked up, brow furrowing, “Hey- what do you two know about operation Paperclip?”  
  
“Huh?” Peter looked up from his computer, “Is that like…a company that makes paperclips or something?”   
  
“No, I think it’s-” Tony’s brow furrowed harder, “Um…what do you two know about Armin Zola?”   
  
Steve tensed, and Peter’s hands shook. Zola was the scientist that had captured and tortured Bucky at the beginning of the war. Zola was the scientist with the Tesseract. Zola was the scientist that had hurt Harley so badly that he couldn’t fight again. Steve cleared his throat, “He was a Nazi scientist that was in charge of the science behind Hydra. Why?”   
  
“Because,” Tony’s voice grew serious and grim, “He’s in SHIELD.”   
  
The reaction was immediate, with both supersoldiers scrambling up to look at Tony’s screen. It was all there, every single word and every single part of the file. Both scanned it intensely before Tony did some tech magic and inhaled sharply, “He’s still in SHIELD.”   
  
“What? How can that be-”   
  
“Look at this file,” And Tony showed them a file of what seemed to be a transcript of Peggy and Howard fighting over what to do with the terminally ill Zola. The more they read, the sicker Peter felt in his gut. Tony’s hands were shaking, “They downloaded his brain. They literally found a way to download his brain.”   
  
“But Peggy vetoed it,” Steve breathed, eyes narrowing, “And then Howard did it anyway.”   
  
“Fuck- Zola brought Hydra back after Peggy eradicated it,” Tony was breathing hard and shaky like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, “Steve- you need to go get Natalia and- and- um- Fury is on the list of threats- same with Hill- and Barton- you need to go to them _in person_ and get them here-”   
  
“On it,” Steve stood, flexing, “Hydra won’t get away with this Tony, I promise.”   
  
Tony looked up at him with hard eyes, “Go. Get the good guys out but don’t let anyone know what you’re doing.”   
  
Steve nodded once, and then fled the room. Tony turned to Peter, “We need to sort through the Hydra files on SHIELD’s database.”   
  
“Already on it,” Peter’s hands flew over the keyboard, remembering everything Ned had told him about hacking and files and, well, computers, “We need to get Shuri and T’Challa in on this- there’s stuff about Wakanda and- and a ploy to kill their father. And- and a Project Insight- we need more than just us.”   
  
“You’re right,” Tony cursed under his breath, working faster than Peter had ever seen him move, “We need more than just us but we can’t do that right now. It can’t be traced back to us. If Hydra finds it, it puts you and all your friends in extreme danger. We can’t let that happen- fuck-”   
  
Peter was frozen. Tony was still talking but he couldn’t find it in himself to breathe. On the screen laid photo copies of a file, half of it redacted. But it wasn’t redacted well enough for him to not see what was going on. 

The Winter Soldier Program. His hands were trembling. He was shaking. He couldn’t breathe.

Erskine had told him about the program. The Winter Soldier Program, a myth even amongst Hydra. It was no secret they were attempting to make a supersoldier, but the Winter Soldier had to transcend even that. The Winter Soldier had to be the next breed of man for Hitler’s army. This Winter Soldier would be deadly than any assassin, stronger than any best, more flexible than any creature, better than any living man.

When he had begun creating his life’s work, Erskine had told him, he had made a mistake. Hydra wanted a wolf. Wanted a predator. Wanted a creature they could use as mass destruction. Instead of that wolf, Erskine saw value in the tiny. In the mundane. A spider can hold 170 times its own body weight. Its own web is five times the tensile weight of steel. He genetically modified a spider, just to see if it would work. 

He produced the results. He took the spider with him the night that he fled for America.

Erskine had explained the program to him when he had woken up in the intensive care ward of the SSR, with his uncle Ben asleep in a chair clutching his hand, and his aunt May passed out on Ben’s shoulder. That Spider- the result of the Winter Soldier program- had bitten him. 

This program was where he was created, even if that was unintentional. 

He held his breath and opened the file with a trembling click of the mouse. 

Already unsteady, he couldn’t handle what he saw within it. 

Bucky had been turned into a monster. The same kind of monster that Erskine had almost created with the spider. 

He couldn’t breathe. The world was spinning at his fingertips and he couldn’t breathe- or maybe he was breathing too much. He felt his lungs fill up with air at a rapid pace but he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t get oxygen. He didn’t know when he started crying but he knew he was crying as he fell out of his chair, clawing at his neck because he needed to breathe but he couldn’t. 

His mind was racing too hard. Nothing was working and he couldn’t breathe because James Buchanan Barnes was now a monster who was being kept in cryostasis and forced to kill and murder. Bucky hadn’t died that night on the train and they had just left him there in that ravine waiting for death. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. 

They had condemned Bucky to this by not going back for him- they had forced him into the life of a monster and he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe. 

When he finally came to himself, Tony was talking him through a breathing exercise. He was shaking, and pressed into the older man’s side. He whispered, voice horrified, “They took Bucky.”  
  
“They- what?” It seemed that Tony hadn’t looked at what he had found, “What about Bucky?”   
  
“They took him,” He clutched onto Tony’s arm, like he would pass out without it, “They took Bucky.”   
  
“Who took Bucky?”   
  
“Hydra,” He swallowed, feeling broken and lightheaded and wrong, “Hydra took him. They- The Winter Soldier Project- they- oh god.”   
  
He felt like he was gonna be sick, jerking away from Tony and throwing up bile into the trash can of the labs. He was still crying. “They- look at the file.”

Tony did look at the file as Peter dry heaved into the trash can. There was a lot in it that Peter hadn’t managed to read. 

He wished he had read it all. 

“He-” Tony was shaking like a leaf, eyes blazing, before swallowing, “No, not Barnes. He’s brainwashed. Barnes is brainwashed and being forced against his will- but- Hydra ordered a hit on- on my parents.”  
  
Peter looked up in time to see Tony press play on a video. His voice was rough as he whispered, “No. Don’t watch it- Tony, don’t-”   
  
But it was too late and suddenly they were both watching the gruesome murder of Howard and Maria Stark. It was one of the worst things that Peter had ever seen. It beat out all the memories of war and the memory of knowing Harley was being tortured. He threw up again from sheer panic. 

Tony was no better as he collapsed into a chair with tears in his eyes, “I need- I need Rhodey- I need my husband- I-”

Peter just nodded, struggling to speak from the tears, “Go call him. I- I’m gonna call Steve.”  
  
The rest of the day passed in a slow, unforgiving, tired, haze. Like the world was breaking down under the revelation that Bucky Barnes was alive and being tortured again and again and again. Steve hadn’t answered his phone. Steve still didn’t know. 

Tony had locked himself in his personal Iron Man lab with Rhodey to mourn and scream. Peter found himself alone, waiting for Steve to come back to the tower with trembling hands. He was so glad that Abbie had gone to a friend’s house for the night as he shakily called his friends and told them he’d be busy for the next week or so. 

Steve came home at half-past midnight and Peter was still sitting at the entrance to the elevators, “Peter?”  
  
“I-” He couldn’t look at his captain. He couldn’t tell him. But he had too, “We found something.”   
  
“You’re white as a ghost, kid,” Steve’s eyes were worried and it tore Peter apart to have to tell him that the man he loved was alive and being tortured, “What’s wrong? Where’s Tony?”   
  
“Tony’s in his lab with Rhodey in blackout mode,” He swallowed, suddenly crying again as he thought about Bucky Barnes that he had known and he thought about the truth Steve Rogers was about to have to face, “And- and- Steve-”   
  
His captain pulled him into a hug, “Hey, kid, just breath. I’ve got you. Is it something about the Tesseract? Or Harley?”   
  
“No,” He jerked his head, pressing his face into Steve’s shoulder, “It’s Bucky.”   
  
Steve froze. Peter continued, “He- Steve- you need to see the file- he’s-”   
  
“Is he alive?” Steve’s voice was trembling, “Is he-”   
  
“He was,” Peter gasped for air as he sobbed, “He was taken from the ravine he fell in- he survived because he was a candidate for the Winter Soldier Project and- and Steve they- they turned him into a monster- they brainwashed him and beat hm and- and he’s their assassin now- and- and-”   
  
Steve just cutched at Peter, holding him in a bruising hug. Slowly, Steve’s entire body started shaking. And Peter realized horrified that Captain America was sobbing. Steve Rogers was crying. 

And Peter didn’t know if he would ever stop crying again.  
  
  


The Front Lines, 1942

  
  


Peggy had started crying sometime in the last week and couldn’t find it within herself to stop. The entire camp was on edge about it, and Harley knew that if he were a better person he would speak up and tell them why. He wasn’t a good person though. He was a very, very bad person. And he knew he was a bad person because he wasn’t going to answer this question honestly.  
  
“Look, Harley,” Bucky sighed, “You’re part of the family now. And we love you in our own way- but ever since that talk you and she had two weeks ago, Peggy has been off. We just want to know what you two talked about.”

He bit back the gut feeling to respond honestly and tell Bucky what would happen, “I told her something about the Tesseract. I don’t know why she’s crying.”  
  
“Then why aren’t you looking in our eyes?” Steve was frowning and he could tell by the ‘Captain America Is Disappointed’ voice that he was getting more and more annoyed.   
  
“Because I’m focusing on these blueprints.”   
  
“You’ve had those blueprints this entire time. Why are you just now focusing on them?”   
  
“Bucky, Steve,” He looked up at them then immediately looked away, “I don’t know why Peggy is upset. But maybe instead of grilling me on what was said, you should be with her.”   
  
He was still looking away but he could imagine their expressions of hurt. Peggy had been glued to one of their sides almost every moment of the day. He knew she must be sleeping right now because the two of them had taken turns watching over Peggy while she grieved for something that hadn’t happened yet. Every time he saw her cry, all Harley wanted to do was cry himself. 

He knew Peggy in the future. And he knew the Peggy that Tony knew. It felt like a punch to know that he had broken the strong, invincible, fearless Wonder Woman that was Peggy Carter. The woman who never cried. Not even at Howard’s funeral. 

And here she was. Two weeks into the knowledge that she would lose both men that she loved, and broken because of it. He couldn’t blame her- he had been having a very similar issue. Every time he thought about going home he wanted to punch something until _he_ broke. It was worse that Peter understood completely that he had to go home and was trying not to show that it was affecting him. 

Harley swallowed, “Listen- can you two go?”

Steve and Bucky exchanged a look, like they wanted to press more. Thankfully they didn’t. They just stood and moved to leave and Harley let himself exhale as they did. 

He hadn’t really left his and Peter’s tent in awhile. He knew eventually they would have to pack up camp again and move, but given that Peggy was usually the one to make that call, he knew they weren’t going anywhere for a while. He was grateful for it. He had gained everything in this tent when he and Peter started dating here, and now he was losing everything in it too. 

It felt unreal. They really hadn’t been dating for that long but it was more meaningful than anything else Harley had ever had. Peter’s smile, his laugh, his personality. It was something that meant a lot to him and now…now he was forced to leave it. He was forced to leave the man he loved. 

He put down the blueprint. 

His head was pounding with thoughts and feelings and things he couldn’t control. He just wanted it to stop. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to live in a world where Peter was just another kid in New York in the twenty-first century. He wanted to live in a world where they had met at school, because Harley had dropped a book. He wanted to be in a world where they had an entire future to grow old and live together and love. 

He didn’t want this world anymore. He didn’t want the world where he was in a war zone. He didn’t want a world where Peter Parker was super powered and a hero. He didn’t want a world where he fell in love with a man who could never stay. He didn’t want this world. He didn’t want this world. 

He just wanted to be able to dance with Peter on the roof of Stark Tower, or make him food, or kiss him gently on their one year anniversary, or ask him to marry him after years and years of dating. He wanted to be able to go home to Peter every day. He wanted to find a way to save him. He wanted to stay. 

God, he wanted to stay. He wanted to stay more than he wanted anything else in the world because if he stayed- if he changed the past, he could save Peter Parker. If he stayed he could save Peter and then they would be together for years. He wanted to stay. He wanted to _stay._

And he was so so so angry Peter wouldn’t let him. 

They hadn’t talked about it much since that night. The possibility of him staying. They hadn’t talked about him staying at all. Fuck, Peter didn’t even act sad when he brought up making the time machine. He didn’t care. Peter didn’t care. 

He had told Harley that he wanted him to stay but the longer this went on the more he felt like that was a lie. 

He punched the ground with his hurt hand and bit back a scream. He never was good at being smart when he was emotional. He bit the inside of his cheek while he focused on the cot, tears welling in his eyes. 

There were very few times in his life that he could remember crying. When his dad left when he was five. When his mom died. When he had first come out to Tony as gay. But he could never remember a time where he sat down and let out a sob that shook his whole body. A cry that felt like it would never stop, like it was drowning him and killing him. He wasn’t ashamed to admit to himself that he was an emotional dude- but tearing up at movies was way different than crying and crying was way different than this. 

It was like his heart was screaming out in pain and hurt and ruin for the fact that he was going to leave Peter soon and Peter didn’t even seem to care. Or maybe it was the fact that he was missing his family more than he thought. Or maybe it was how Peter was destined to die and be lost to the world forever. Or maybe it was everything. Maybe it was the entirety of the past few months bearing down at him and making him bawl his eyes out. 

All he knew was that he couldn’t breathe or see or do anything but cry. 

He should have expected the hands that came around him but he didn’t. Sometimes it was hard to remember that Peter had super hearing that could hear a pen drop in a snowstorm. His boyfriend was cradling him close, pulling Harley into his lap in one smooth motion. Harley still couldn’t do anything but cry. He couldn’t do anything but press his face to Peter’s neck and cry.

He didn’t calm down or stop crying for hours. Somewhere along that time, Peter had shifted them from the floor to the bed, holding him so, so close and kissing his skin occasionally. He sniffed, “I’m sorry.”  
  
“You don’t have to be sorry,” Peter murmured into his hair, holding him even tighter, “I’ve got you. I’m here.”   
  
“Yes. I do have to be sorry,” he whispered, “Because I’m being pathetic.”   
  
“If it’s pathetic to cry then I’m way more pathetic than you. You know that, right?”   
  
“It’s different.”   
  
“Okay,” Peter knew what he needed, and for that Harley was grateful, “Do you wanna talk about it?”   
  
Harley shook his head, then hesitated, “Will you miss me?”   
  
“Baby- yes, I’ll miss you.”   
  
And just like that he was crying again. But these tears weren’t anything like the ones before. These tears were hot and angry and he shoved away from Peter and stumbled to his feet, “Then act like it!”   
  
He didn’t know why he was yelling but he knew he was angry, so he tore at his hair and shouted out, “I’m leaving forever and I’m so angry because the boy that I love more than I have ever loved anything isn’t acting like he cares at all! How do you think that makes me feel, Peter?!”

‘I-” Peter swallowed, blinking, confused, “What?”  
  
“You! I just- God!” Harley couldn’t stop the tears and he screamed, “I’m going to leave! I have to leave you behind- and you just- you don’t even care!” 

He was shaking in anger, “Ever since that night, you’ve been acting like it’s not going to happen! You’ve been ignoring the fact that I’m leaving and the time machine and everything in favor of treating all of this like it was before! I’m tired of it Peter! I just want to know you care that I’m about to be gone from your life forever!”  
  
“You think,” Peter’s voice was slow and angry, “That I don’t care that you have to leave?”   
  
“What am I supposed to think!”   
  
“That I’m your boyfriend!” Peter stood too, and Harley looked away from him as he rose to Harley’s anger with his own, “That I love you! That you’re everything to me!”   
  
“You don’t act like it!” Harley shouted back at him, pacing, ignoring the hot angry tears down his cheeks, “You don’t act like I’m anything to you!”   
  
“You are everything to me! You’ve been everything to me!”   
  
“Then why aren’t you upset I’m leaving?!”

“I am _devastated_ that you’re leaving!!” 

“Then act like it!”  
  
“Act like what?!” Peter roared back, “In case you haven’t noticed Harley, I’m holding this camp together by a fucking thread! Peggy is depressed and upset and not herself and that means that Steve and Bucky are moments away from murder at all times- Bruce is on edge because Thor is on edge because of that fucking Tesseract- Howards being _Howard_ about it all- and I can’t look at you without remembering that I’m going to _lose_ you!”   
  
Harley froze, tears still streaming down his face. Peter carried on, “I have lost everyone I’ve ever loved, Harley! My parents! My uncle Ben! Erskine! And I finally found a boy who has my heart- a boy who makes me laugh and feel warm and safe- a boy who I love more than I ever knew I could love. And I have to sit back and watch him leave because he’s from the future and he has a life there. You are my _everything_ -” To Harley’s horror, Peter was crying too, “-and I’m losing you. But I can’t show how broken that makes me because if I do, I might break down and not let you go.”   
  
Harley faltered, sitting on their shared bed again with shaking hands. He pressed them to his eyes to hide the trembling, “I-”   
  
“No,” Peter was still angry, “No! You don’t get to accuse me of not caring that you’re leaving when you are the only think I care about these days! I thought I could be a soldier, I thought I could fight the good fight, and I am happy to do that! I’m happy to give my life day in and day out to fight against the Nazis- but you are the thing that makes me wake up in the morning now. It took me nearly losing you to realize just how much you _mean_ to me, Harley! You’re my angel- you’re my lifeline- and I have to let you go!”

“Do you know how hard that is?” He was pacing and Harley watched him with a trembling body, “Do you know how hard it is to wake up every day for the past to weeks and think about how any day I’m going to lose the love of my life? To a world better and more open and so much greater than me?!”  
  
“Peter that’s not-”   
  
“No! No, Harley, that is what you were saying,” Peter turned to face him and Harley wanted to sob at the broken look in his eyes, “You were saying that _you_ and you alone are the only one who cares about you going back when I have to sit here and smile and pretend to be okay because I know you and I know that if I even _ask_ you to stay you would and you’d grow to hate me for it!”   
  
Harley jerked to his feet, reaching for Peter and tugging him into a tight hug, whispering against his shoulder, “I could never hate you.”   
  
“You will if I ask you to stay,” Peter was trembling as hard as he was, “That's the worst part. Knowing if I ask you would stay. That you’d give it all up for me. Not a day goes by where I don’t want to get on my knees and beg you but I can’t do that to you. I can’t.”   
  
“Peter-”   
  
“I love you too much to condemn you to this life.”

“I would choose it in a heartbeat,” He murmured into the side of Peter’s neck, “If it meant you.”  
  
“And I can’t let you do that.”

Slowly, the two of them found their way to the cot, and collapsed on it. Harley whispered, “I wish-”  
  
“I know what you wish,” Peter whispered back, “But if I think about that, I’ll do something stupid.”   
  
The two sat in silence a little more. He wanted so much with Peter- so much he knew he could never have. He kissed Peter’s jaw and breathed out, “Peter.”   
  
“Harley,” Peter whispered back, “What are you-”   
  
“I want to give myself to you,” He kissed up to Peter’s lips, “Or however they say it in the 40s. I don’t want to leave without knowing you intimately. I don’t want to go without memorizing the taste of your lips and the feeling of your hands.”   
  
Peter pulled back, “I want that too. God- I want that more than I can say. But Harley-”   
  
“But what? I want to show you my love.”   
  
“No,” Peter said firmly, pulling back and shifting so they were laying on their sides facing each other, “I want that too- but we just had a fight. And before that fight, you had some sort of- of- episode. I want to do this right, okay?”   
  
He nodded slowly, a flush on his cheeks, “I- I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry for suggesting it,” Peter kissed his forehead, “You’re the love of my life. There’s no one else I’d rather lose my virginity too.”  
  
“Same here,” Harley whispered, “But I’m still sorry I suggested it right now of all times.”   
  
“Not your brightest idea,” He fought back a small smile at the teasing in Peter’s voice, “But it wasn’t a bad suggestion. Just- just not tonight okay?”   
  
“Yeah, not tonight,” He whispered, “But before I go.”   
  
“Before you go.”

  
  


New York, 2019

  
  


“Before we go in there,” Steve was low to the ground, voice hard and commanding like he was back in an active war zone again. Peter had to admit they kind of were, “Are you ready?”  
  
He nodded, shifting his feet slightly, “Captain, you know me. I’m always going to fight beside you. I’ve got your back.”   
  
It was weird being in a combat situation with Steve again. He hadn’t been in a fight with his captain since…since the last time he went down in the ice. And now here they were, in the bushes outside of an abandoned Hydra bunker, expecting the worst, and trying to find Bucky. 

The new suits that Tony had made them were very cool though. The Spider-Man one in particular seemed to be based off the design Harley had made him in 1942, but the colors were a little more vibrant and the mask covered his whole face, not just half of it. He kind of really really really loved it. Steve’s Captain America suit was even cooler, though, in his opinion. Tony had tricked it out with all sorts of things, including a belt that had a _snack compartment_ so the super soldier didn’t lose energy. He wished Tony had given _him_ a snack compartment. 

“Peter, focus,” Steve’s voice was very serious, “We don’t know what’s going to happen once we’re in there.”  
  
“I know, Steve, but-”   
  
“And we’re only there to get Bucky. We get in, grab Bucky, get out.”   
  
“Okay,” Peter said slowly, “But we still don’t know if this is the right base.”   
  
“It has to be,” Steve’s voice was tight, “This is the last place on record that they kept him and I- I can’t lose him again.”   
  
Peter faltered but nodded, “Like I said. I’m always going to be here to watch your back, okay?”   
  
Steve nodded and Peter felt a pang of grief rip through him. What Steve was going through was probably the hardest thing in the world. Despite his initial shock, he wasn’t the one who had found out that his long lost dead boyfriend was alive and savable. He wasn’t the one who was faced with the knowledge that his girlfriend died alone without either of them by her side when both of them could’ve been. Some ghosts would be Steve’s and Steve’s alone to face and Peter would never be able to understand them fully. 

But he could help save Bucky. 

They moved silently, with a precision that was only gained in the heat of war. It was strange to think that the last time they had fought side by side they had both been stricken down by grief and working to end one of the worst crimes of World War II This was different. This mission wasn’t fueled by anger or grief or the need to save the world. This was one to get back a person they both loved. For Peter, a brother he never had. For Steve…more. 

He swung to the roof, murmuring, “There’s no camera’s-” He clicked the side of his mask, shifting his goggles to see heat signatures, “And there’s no heat signature inside. There’s cold spots though- areas that could be a cryochamber.”  
  
“That can’t be right,” Steve muttered, “Because I’m seeing a heat signature.”   
  
“Is it possible you’re seeing my heat signature?”   
  
“No- it’s not on top of the base. It’s about five miles underground.”   
  
Peter faltered, “I’m not seeing that- but-”   
  
“I’m changing our plan,” Steve said firmly, mirroring Peter’s thoughts, “No more splitting up. We stick together. From what we know about the Winter Soldier program, it was guarded by people who could rival the Winter Soldier in killing. And I would rather keep you alive, kid.”   
  
“Thanks for that.”   
  
“At least until Harley gets back,” Steve was clearly trying to take on a lighthearted tone, but the emotion was heavy in his voice, “You have to stay alive.”   
  
He flipped down to Steve’s side, “Alright. Just- he’s going to be okay.”   
  
Steve offered a small, wry grin at him. They both knew that Bucky Barnes was going to be the farthest thing from okay when they got him back. But they were getting him back. They were going to get him back and help him be okay- whatever okay meant for Bucky now. 

He and Steve had talked about it once. What would happen if Bucky didn’t want to remember him. Didn’t want to remember him and Peggy and the love that the three of them shared. Steve was never a very big crier but he had weeped like a baby the night that they had that conversation and admitted that he didn’t care if Bucky didn’t want to remember him, he just wanted to see him again just once. Bucky could set the pace and tell him what to do. He just wanted to see the boy he loved again. 

Their love story always made Peter want to cry when he thought about it. He hoped that Harley would want to continue what they had when he got back. He wasn’t sure he would- but that wasn’t important now. 

What was important now was the empty, echoing halls of the Hydra bunker. The lights seemed to be motion activated and they flickered on and off repeatedly in an unstable pattern that reminded Peter of the horror movies that Harry loved to watch. Both he and Steve were on edge, prepared for a fight at any moment. 

Footsteps echoed throughout the base and it took Peter a moment to realize that it was their own footsteps and not someone else’s. His hand found the back of Steve’s suit and he mumbled, “This place is terrifying.”  
  
“I know, kid,” Steve’s eyes were scanning, searching, “I’ve got your back.”   
  
“That’s my line,” Peter teased, but pressed a little closer to his captain, “It seems like it’s been abandoned for years.”   
  
Steve just shook his head, “No, look-” He knelt down to the dust covered floors, “These are footprints going in and out. Someone’s been in here before us.”   
  
“Wait,” Peter frowned and kneeled next to Steve, “These are paw prints- but not a dog’s. Too big to be any dog I’ve seen.”   
  
“Do you think…”

They exchanged a glance, and Peter spoke, “Erskine said they wanted to base the serum around a predator. Maybe-”  
  
“This place is more than just creepy,” Steve stood and pulled Peter up with him, protectively, “It’s dangerous. Stay next to me and don’t move from my side okay?”   
  
“Aye aye, Cap,” Peter mumbled, eyes focusing on the trail of footprints.

They had been walked over a few times, clearly. It was always the same line, like it was afraid to stray away from it. The layers of dirt and dust covering everything else remained untouched. It was terrifying, seeing a building trapped in time. They slowly made their way towards the end of the hall, but something shiny and metal caught his eye.

“Oh my god,” He breathed out, pulling Steve towards one of the branching side rooms, “Steve- this is-”  
  
“A torture chamber,” Steve said solemnly, taking in the chair that looked like it was used for medical examinations. They both knew Hydra better than that, “Like the one I found Bucky in when I first started fighting.”   
  
They stood in that room, holding their breath for almost five minutes. This was most likely the place they tortured Bucky into insanity, if the instruments of pain on the wall were anything to go by. This was the place that most likely held the memories of Bucky Barnes. 

Finally, Steve moved forward, studying each aspect of the room before stopping at a corner, “Peter… you need to come see this.”  
  
He moved forward and gasped. A photo dating 1942 was hanging on the wall, and in it was Harley, bloodied and bruised. He knew that outfit. The photo was taken from the day that Harley had been kidnapped. It seemed that the photographer didn’t care about Harley as much, because he was out of focus, but rather at the objects by his feet. 

The lights flickered on. 

The torture chamber wasn’t a chamber at all. Instead it was cluttered with all of the devices that Harley had made in the past. This wasn’t a room for torture, this was- 

“Time Traveler X,” Steve read, hand shaking, “‘last seen fighting for the Allies on the side of the Asset pre-transformation. Information needed to access the gauntlet. Danger level: most likely high, with knowledge of the future and tesseract. If seen again, kill on sight.’ Peter- what is this.”  
  
“I don’t know,” He swallowed, staring at a knock off freeze ray, “This might be- some sort of- some sort of research room- or-” He felt his hands tremble and looked up. Like he had suddenly suspected he realized that the roof was made of two different materials. Like it had been caved in at a point, “This is where they brought Harley and tortured him before they took him to the tesseract.”   
  
“God,” Steve looked like he was gonna be sick, “This is horrifying.”   
  
“They made a mockery of his work,” Peter whispered, picking up a false gauntlet, “They could never get it to work on their own.”

“They- what?”  
  
Peter felt like Steve looked- on the verge of throwing up. He picked up a file with shaking hands and opened it, mumbling, “Zola- Zola wrote this. ‘The time-traveling American is a specimen I very much would like to meet with again. If given the opportunity I would love to attempt to make him an asset, despite his defaults. He is clever and smart and knew how to unleash the Tesseract’s energy. If I could get my hands on him as a young child from the future I could mold him and shape him to be Hydra’s next prodigy. He and our current Asset would represent the new face of the world. If he is found any older than ten however, I will skin him alive like a fish to prevent the humiliation that he has caused me in front of Herr Schmidt.’”   
  
Steve placed a hand on Peter’s arm, “We need to move on.”   
  
“They’re threatening him,” Peter hissed, eyes hot and stinging, “The way Zola is writing about him- like- like-”   
  
“Peter, we can’t do anything about that now.” Steve was firm and commanding taking up Peter’s attention with a calm disposition, “Harley’s already in the past and when he gets back we’ll have taken down Hydra as much as we can.”   
  
“Right,” He was trembling as he closed the file, “Right.”   
  
He paused and took the black and white photo off the wall. No one should see Harley like that. No one should see him broken and bruised and in pain. He didn’t want anyone else to know that this ever happened to Harley- that he failed to keep Harley safe. He wasn’t going to let it happen again when he came back.

They started back on their journey. There were dozens of rooms like that, but unlike that specific one, each one was a standard table and torture device room. Peter could practically hear the screams of those who opposed Hydra and got tested on as a result. He stayed close to Steve’s side, not willing to be braver than he was currently being. 

They reached the stairs sooner rather than later, and made their way down into the inky darkness. He hated the dark, he decided, as they found their way into another underground corridor. Unlike the ones above, each room was filled with testing objects and test tubes. It looked like Dr. Victor Frankenstein’s lab on steroids, with things still bubbling and oozing. 

Something about the place felt unnaturally wrong, let it had been tampered with and made to create something ungodly. They moved through the hall without stopping to search the rooms. Peter couldn’t help but feel grateful that they didn’t look

He was sure if they did they’d find at least one skeleton. 

They traversed deeper into the base, growing more and more on edge with each step until they got to a floor that had a word written in Russian. What was Russian doing in a German Hydra base? Peter wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but he scanned the word. Results came back seconds later and he exhaled sharply, “Winter Soldier Ward.”  
  
“Alright,” Steve tensed, “We don’t know what’s on the other side of that door. Let me go first, okay?”   
  
Peter nodded once, senses tingling in anticipation. Steve opened the door to the wing quietly, and was immediately met with the bark of a loud, rabid, fierce dog. 

The dog bolted out of the shadows and Peter fought back a scream, scrambling back as Steve toppled and…laughed as the dog licked over his face, “Down, boy! Down!”

“What-” Peter was shaking, eyes wide, “Steve, not to alarm you but there’s a bloodthirsty wolf on your chest.”  
  
Steve just laughed again, relaxing and petting over the wolf-dog’s fur, “He’s no bloodthirsty beast- Oh, who’s a good boy?”   
  
The dogs tail wagged and he yipped happily. Despite being around the height of Steve’s waist on all fours, he seemed content to be petted and loved on by the supersoldier, “That’s it- oh yeah, what a good boy!”   
  
“Steve,” Peter stood, walking around the dog and captain to stare wide eyed into the room. Unlike the other rooms they had found, this room wasn’t decaying or broken or gross. Rather it was clean, and well-taken care of, “Steve I think this is where Bucky-”   
  
“It would make sense,” Steve was sitting up now, still petting the large wolf, “His collar says his name is Jason the Second.”   
  
“Jason the Second- like-”   
  
“Like Buck’s old dog Jason, yeah,” Steve looked around the room, “Not very comfortable but a whole lot better than the rest of this place.”   
  
“So- so he’s not in cryo?”   
  
“I guess not.”   
  
The pair stood in silence before Peter spoke really, really hesitantly, “Do you think we should look for clues?”

“I don’t think we’ll have to look far,” Steve’s voice was tight but his eyes were focused on a screen over Peter’s shoulder. He turned and felt his blood curdle.

“Tony.”  
  
The rush to get to the quinjet from inside the base was terrifying. Steve had scooped up the dog and started sprinting, whereas Peter was swinging at his top speed in the desperate hope that they might be able to get to Tony before Bucky did. Even with the fact that Bucky had a wolf with the name of his childhood pet that didn’t erase the fact that Bucky was most likely still on orders from Hydra. 

Peter refused to let anything happen to Tony. He refused. The older man had become like a father to him and he wasn’t going to lose that again. He wasn’t. He just couldn’t. He slammed into the jet, Steve hot on his heels, both working in completely panicked silence as they prepared the flight for take off. 

“Peter- breathe,” Steve’s voice was even tighter than it was the last time he spoke, and he was clutching at the wolf-dog’s fur with unsteady hands, “Karen, get us to the Tower as fast as you can.”   
  
He turned on his heel to glare at Steve, pacing harder, “I won’t breathe! A deadly assassin is after Tony-”   
  
“-Tony is a fighter, he can take care of himself!”   
  
“Tony is still grieving the reality of his mother!”   
  
“He wouldn’t hurt Bucky,” Steve said, stubborn and raging, “He wouldn’t.”   
  
“I don’t care about Bucky right now! Bucky’s gone and brainwashed until we help get him back!” Peter was shouting now, and he couldn’t stop his hands from trembling. He clenched them into fists, “But he’s capable of killing Tony- and Tony- Tony has so much he needs to stay for- and Abbie is in the tower- and Rhodey is gone- and-”   
  
“Peter, breathe!”   
  
“I can’t!” He screamed at Steve, anger plaguing his thoughts, “I can’t breathe because Tony could be dying! Tony could be getting murdered right now and all you care about is that your precious Bucky could be hurt in self defense!”   
  
“He’s the love of my life!”   
  
“He’s brainwashed!”   
  
“You-” Steve breathed in sharply, and pressed his face to Jason’s fur, “Okay. Okay. You’re right. I shouldn’t have been worried about Bucky’s safety, because Tony won’t do anything to seriously injure him beyond incapacitation. I am worried about Tony’s safety.”   
  
Peter deflated and moved to sit next to Steve, pressing his face into his shoulder, “I’m terrified.”   
  
“I am too.”

By the time they got back to New York it was the dead of night. Stark Tower was alight with the Stark sign, and Peter felt himself shake in fear that they were too late. The image of Tony, dead on the lab floor was terrifying. The image of Abbie shot to death because she saw the murder flashed accross his mind. The idea that Tony was dead was haunting him. 

The jet had barely touched the landing pad rough when he threw himself out of it and raced to the penthouse. 

The house was quiet and eerie. But he heard Tony’s voice, coming from the balcony. He relaxed, bolting forward, calling out, “Tony!”  
  
His blood turned to ice again when he saw the scene that was playing out on the balcony. 

Bucky- no. The Winter Soldier was pinning Tony down with a knee to his throat and a gun to his forehead. He felt bile rush to his throat, and he was going to bawl. They were illuminated by a full moon above them showing off a glistening metal arm and a hard, blank, stare. 

Tony was speaking calmly, like there wasn’t a gun to his forehead, “She talked about you all the time, you know.”  
  
Steve rushed next to him, but Peter held his arm out. This was a scene that they couldn’t disturb at the sake of Tony’s life. 

“I always asked her which one of you was her favorite,” Tony powered through and it took Peter a second to realize that the _her_ he was talking about was Peggy, “And she never could tell me. She kept a locket of the two of you next to her heart at all times. One photo of scrawny, dorky Steve, and another photo of James Buchanan Barnes. She loved you, you know?”   
  
“I-” Bucky pressed the gun more onto Tony’s forehead, but now, the look in his eyes wasn’t blank.

“She used to tell me about you when I couldn’t sleep,” Tony seemed to realize that Bucky was starting to feel things too, and he was spilling out ever memory he had of Peggy, “She would kiss my forehead with her lipstick and grin as I tried to scrub it off and tell me about how you used to hate it when she kissed your forehead with lipstick too. She told me about how you taught her all the street names in New York City because you missed the city. She told me about how you used to write letters to your sisters back in the States because you were homesick but you would pull her close every time someone even mentioned you taking leave and say that you had a home right there.”  
  
Bucky’s eyes flicked with something human, “She had rose perfume.”   
  
Peter could cry at the sound of his voice. It was wrecked and horrible, but it was so purely Bucky Barnes that he felt a rush of love for his friend. Tony smiled dryly, “She wore it for you.”   
  
“I-” He slowly pulled the gun away from Tony’s forehead, “Tell me more about her.”   
  
“I will,” Tony promised, “If you stay.”   
  
“I can’t-”   
  
“Yes,” Tony pressed on, so diplomatic that his tone radiated Peggy Carter energy, “You can. Look,” Tony pulled Bucky’s attention towards them, “You have friends here. And- they even brought your dog.”   
  
Bucky’s eyes were trained on Steve’s. He nodded slowly. Tony murmured, “Do you recognize him?”   
  
“Yes,” Bucky murmured back, “That’s my Stevie.”   
  
And for what felt like the millionth time, Peter watched Steve start to cry. But unlike every other time in the past few weeks these tears weren’t grief or pain or hurt. No. The cries that Steve let out in that moment were full of joy, and happiness. 

“Yeah, Buck,” He grinned weakly through his tears, “It’s your Stevie.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to Ava, who beta read this at 1:00 am for her and it was wild. its 12,309 words. Im SO SORRY i made you do that dhfjkslhf
> 
> Please tell me what you think!


	5. and we'll do it again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Don’t make me go back,” Harley whispered the words into Peter’s throat, “I can stay. I can stay and we can be together.” 
> 
> Peter’s arms tightened around him, “No, baby. I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wowie this was a RIDE and honestly so wild,, 
> 
> thank you to EVERYONE who's read this fic even tho my chapters are painfully long,, thank you to Ava and Sarah who beta'd this fic for me throughout it all,,, 
> 
> and last but not least, thank you hollanders for posting photos of shirtless tom holland, so a harley keener fangirl could google 'tom holland shirtless' while writing smut at three am. Yes. He really DOES have a freckle under his right pec.

New York, 2019

  
  


Peter loved it when Bucky was cooking. The entire flat in the tower smelled like Roast lamb with potatoes and carrots and everything good in the world. It helped that Bucky was the best chef in the place- though Tony would protest and say that it was him who was the best chef. Even Tony Stark’s amazing cooking had absolutely nothing on Bucky Barnes cooking. 

He had started it after his therapist told him he needed to get a hobby. Originally he had asked Peter to cook with him but after burning down an oven and almost blowing a hole in the side of the tower, he decided that this was a project he should probably take on alone. And Peter, who was often the guinea pig of Bucky’s cooking, was very very happy to sit this one out. 

It had been a month since they got Bucky back to them, and it had been almost heaven. The first week Tony had taken special care to help him remove the triggers, and since then he had slowly begun finding himself again. After a lot of talking Bucky and Steve had decided that they wanted to date again but wanted to take it very very slowly so that Bucky had the opportunity to find himself again in the new world. 

They visited Peggy's grave in england every weekend. 

Peter thought that was to be expected though- they had both loved her more than Peter knew people could love. The only exception to the epicness of their love story was the fact that he and Harley had the most passionate and loving relationship that Peter had ever seen. In his mind, his love for Harley beat out his love for everything else. 

But maybe that's how Steve, Bucky, and Peggy were. Maybe the three of them had loved each other so deeply that there was nothing else in the world they loved more. After all, Peter knew deep down that Steve hadn’t put that plane in the water to save the world. He did it to save Peggy. If it were Harley, he knew he would’ve done the same thing. 

“-Peter,” Steve was snapping a hand in front of his face, “Kid, come back to earth. Bucky asked you a question.”   
  
He flushed, “Sorry- whats up, Bucky?”   
  
“I was asking you where your friends are,” Bucky hummed and raised an eyebrow, “Normally this place is crawling with children on friday nights. Where are they?”   


“Oh- did I not tell you guys?” Bucky’s eyebrow stayed raised and Steve looked at him curiously, “Flash finally said yes.”   
  
The reaction was immediate. Steve grinned widely, “Thats fantastic! I’m real proud of how far he’s come.”   
  
“Yeah he's really opened up,” Peter chatted back, happily, “And it was only a matter of time. Everyone knew that the two of them really really love each other.”   
  
“It was painfully obvious- I remember getting an extra bowl of popcorn for you guy’s movie night and they were glancing at each other with linked pinkies. It was like watching the cheesiest most slow burn rom com ever.”   
  
“It really was- it was starting to get annoying,” he glanced at his phone, then pulled up a photo of Harry in a suit with some roses, “See this is how he did it. Something real classy to show Flash he was serious- and Flash ate it up, of course.”   
  
Steve cooed over the photo, “He looks like a grown man!”   
  
“Well, he better look like a grown man,” Peter rolled his eyes, “Because he got into Yale last week, and everyones buzzing over it. It's funny because I’m almost certain Flash is going to Harvard.”    
  
“What about you?”   
  
“I’m waiting a bit then its either gonna be MIT or NYU.”   
  
“And by waiting a bit you mean waiting for-”   
  
“Shut up!”   
  
“Boys!” Bucky interrupted their banter, “I’m confused. What did Flash say yes too?”   
  
Both Peter and Steve exchanged amused looks. Steve just grinned, “Flash said yes to Harry asking him out.”   
  
“Huh,” Bucky raised another brow, “Good for them.”   
  
“Real good for them.”   
  
“I still think it's weird that you’re so invested in this, Stevie,” Bucky turned back to the stove and resumed cooking.   
  
“It's not weird,” Steve huffed back, “They’re entertaining. They’re like… a mini drama all in their own.”   
  
Peter snorted and swatted at Steve, “You’re an asshole- stop using my friends for entertainment and watch youtube like the rest of us!”   
  
“I do think youtube is way more entertaining than Peter's friends,” Bucky turned to wink at Steve and share a grin with Peter.

“Both of you are assholes.”   
  
“No, we’re not,” Bucky moved to squeeze Steve's hand and Steve went bright red, “We’re your favorite people in the world.”   
  
“Nope,” he huffed again, and stuck his tongue out at them despite the blush that was still on his cheeks, “I love Tony and Rhodey and Abbie more than I love you two.”   
  
Peter put a mock hand over his heart, “I’m offended!”

“Well it's true!” he swatted at Peter much like Peter had done to him moments before, “I love Tony and Rhodey so much that I almost begged to go on their date with them tonight.”   
  
“No you did not,” Bucky huffed, steve’s habit transferred onto him, “You were happy to have them out of the house because you said Tony needed a good fuck to relax-”   
  
“Bucky!”   
  
“Holy shit,” Peter pressed his palms to his eyes, “I didn’t hear that. I didn’t hear that. I didn’t hear anything at all, and Tony Stark and James Rhodes are both still virgins because they are practically my dads and I will scream.”   
  
“Hey,” Bucky’s voice got a little quieter and Steve and Peter both faltered and turned their attention to him. He chewed at his bottom lip and looked away slightly, like he often did when he was thinking of the past or something emotional, “I thought me and Stevie were like your dads.”   
  
Affection for James Bucchanan Barnes rushed through him and he beamed widely, “Obviously. You guys have been there with me from the beginning. I have like- six or seven dad figures in my life at any given moment anyway.”   
  
“Oh really,” Steve teased, “I only counted four. Who are the other three.”   
  
He responded as seriously as he physically could, “Doc Oc, The Green Goblin, and that Jameson guy from the news.”   
  
He could only manage a serious face for so long before all three of them burst into gut busting laughter. When Peter had first woken up from the ice he hadn’t imagined the future would be so warm. Even without Harley here right now, he was happy. He had a family here in the future. He had Steve and Bucky and Tony and Rhodey and Abbie and Harry and Flash and Ned and MJ and Shuri. He had almost everything he needed. Almost. 

He loved these days. These short New York winter days. The world was cold and he was no longer scared of that. He no longer felt like the ice was still in his bones from the ocean. Instead he was just… happy. He was happier than he ever knew he could be. He was warmer than he thought he would ever be again. 

Slowly, the trio came down from their laughing high to grin at each other. Jason barked at them for a moment before huffing and settling down at Bucky’s feet, hoping to get a bite of the lamb he was cooking. Bucky just hummed and gave in with a small smile, and Steve was staring at him lovingly. 

It was hard to believe how domestic their lives had become. He paused, “Hey, guys, I’ve been thinking.”   
  
“Oh that's never good,” Bucky hummed, petting Jason’s head, “You know thinking makes your head hurt Pete.”   
  
“You’re an asshole-”   
  
“No he’s right,” Steve nodded sagely, patting Peter’s back, “When you think bad things happen. Like Shuri and the invisibility ring.”    
  
“Okay first of all,” He pulled away and pouted at them, “It was Shuri’s idea to create The One Ring in real life, it was not my fault she got stuck like that for three days. Second of all…” He shifted nervously, “You know how you guys and Tony and Natasha and Clint have decided to make a superhero group to fight guys like the Doc Oc and stuff?”   
  
“Yeah?” Steve looked at him puzzled, “You fought him too. What about it?”   
  
“Well, I was thinking…” Peter flushed, “I don’t really wanna fight as a group. I’m going to college next year and I had this idea.”

“What idea?”    
  
“I want to make Spider-Man a more local hero,” He blurted, “I really love the group you guys have formed and I want to be a part of it, but we haven’t said if we’re all returning to the battlefield and I’ve been thinking that I kind of want too. I want to be a local, full time hero in charge of helping the people of this city.”   
  
Both men blinked at him. Bucky turned back to the food, “Yeah, okay. Sounds doable honestly- do you think you’ll be able to hold a job while you do this?”   
  
“Wait that's it?” he blinked, “I’ve been stewing over being a full time hero for a month and that's it?!”   
  
“I don’t know what you expected,” Steve shrugged, “I kinda knew you were leaning towards being a full time hero.”   
  
“Yeah but-”

“But what? You thought we wouldn’t support you?”   
  
“I thought it’d be a bigger deal than this,” He crossed his arms, nose wrinkling, “Like- this is what I’ve decided to do with my  _ future _ , I thought I’d at least get you guy’s permission!”    
  
Steve and Bucky exchanged looks. Bucky smirked in a move that made him look like Bucky pre-Hydra, “Oh it's not our permission you need.”

“I’ll work on Rhodey and Tony’s permission later-”   
  
“Kid,” Steve snorted and shook his head, “It’s Harley’s permission you have to worry about.”   
  
Peter blue screened. Fuck. He hadn’t even thought about what Harley was going to think about him being a modern day hero. He had been so focused on imagining Harley with him in the future that he forgot something so incredibly vital: His boyfriend might not want him to throw himself back into danger. Especially if Harley had to live with the knowledge that Peter had died in the ice while they had been in love. 

Fuck. 

Steve laughed, clapping him on the back, “You look terrified.”    
  
“I am terrified,” He stressed, chewing at his bottom lip, “What’s he going to think when he gets back?”   
  
“He’s gonna think he loves you and be confused what you’re doing here.”   
  
“What if-”   
  
“Nope,” Bucky put a plate of spaghetti on the counter in front of Peter, “No what if’s. What if’s are for therosists, not boys who are waiting for their boyfriend to come home.”   
  


Peter paused and then shifted, mumbling, “He’s coming home friday. Friday is the day he left so Friday is the day he’s coming home.”   
  
The kitchen stilled. It was almost like that in all of the chaos with Bucky the two of them had forgotten the date that Harley had left. Had forgotten that he was getting home. 

Peter didn’t forget. Maybe it wasn’t on the forefront of his mind twenty four seven but he could never forget what day his long lost lover was coming back. The day he would get to kiss those freckles again. The day he would get to play with that blonde hair again. The day he would get to hold his hand again. The day he got Harley back in his arms. 

He was brimming with anticipation and nervous with want and need. He wanted Harley back. He needed Harley by his side. He had waited so long since he woke up to see his boyfriend. That’s all he wanted.

Bucky cleared his throat, “Are you nervous?”   
  
“Yes,” His gut tugged at the memory of their last day together, “I’m so nervous. I’m like- everytime I think about him coming back my hands get clammy and my mouth gets dry.”   
  
“Why?”   
  
“Because I love him,” He quirked an eyebrow at Steve, “I love him more than I have ever loved anything before. And I’ve gone… months without him. And it sucks. I want him back in my life and by my side and in my arms.”   
  
Steve glanced at Bucky then flushed, “I know the feeling.”   
  
He suppressed a grin and watched Bucky do the same. Feeling the oncoming love fest that was about to occur, he fixed himself a plate of spaghetti and left to his room. He paused and placed his food on his desk and looked over his photo wall. 

There were dozens of photos. He found he had a knack for photography, and it was something he had a real love for. In the corner of a cork board a photo of Flash sitting on a park bench with ice cream. Next to that a candid of Shuri laughing. Harry smiling at Flash while he read. Abbie, Tony, Rhodey, and Steve at a game night. Bucky baking cookies with Abbie. Small things in life. Sunsets and sunrises. Moons and stars. People and places. New York and Queens and Brooklyn. 

In the center of all this mess was one he hadn’t taken. It was from a photo he had found on Shuri’s phone. Harley was illuminated by golden light as the sunset around him. He was mid laugh, and Peter could tell by the way his nose was crinkled that it was one of those laughs he accidentally snorted on. It was every bit as angelic as Harley was. 

Harley was coming back. Harley was coming back and he’d have more to add to his photo wall. He’d have more to show. He’d have his Harley. He thought about Harley.

Harley's hands and the way his long nimble fingers were made for the detailed work of wiring. How he had more calluses than anyone Peter had known because he gripped the tools he was given like he was afraid he’d drop them. How Harley’s nails were cut short to not get in the way of his actions when he was working with metal. The small scars on his fingers from paper cuts and metal working and wires. 

Harley's broad shoulders that held so much power and so much love. The way he always itched the left shoulder when he was telling a lie. The freckles that splattered across them like the night sky. The made up constellations- Hamlet and Ophelia, Harley had jokingly told him once- that Peter would trace. 

Harley’s hair that he had grown out, blonde and wild and free. The way it felt in Peter’s fingers. The way Harley loved to have it braided and played with a tugged. The way Peter could make him relax by running a hand through it. The part that was slightly off center and the bangs that were slightly too long and all the flaws that made him fall in love. 

Herley’s lips that Peter wanted to never stop kissing. The way they were always chapped and a little rough and made for loving. The way his mouth formed the letters of Peter’s name. The way he bit at a corner of his bottom lip to figure out a puzzle he didn’t know the answer too. The way he’d flick his tongue out over his lips before he complimented Peter. The way he smiled with his teeth. The way he smirked without them. The dimple on his right cheek. 

Harley’s eyes. Bluer than any ocean Peter had ever seen and more vibrant than any color he had ever experienced. The spark that was always there when he talked about science and building and the people he loved. The tears that would well up in his eyes from laughing to hard at bad jokes. The way the firelight always reflected from his eyes like it was made to highlight his face. 

Harley. He loved Harley. He never wanted anything other than Harley. He was getting Harley back. 

  
  


The front Lines, 1942

  
  


“Don’t make me go back,” Harley whispered the words into Peter’s throat, “I can stay. I can stay and we can be together.”    
  
Peter’s arms tightened around him, “No, baby. I’m sorry.”

The morning was cold. Ice and snow was all around them outside the tent. But inside the tent was warm, filled with only their breath and each other's body heat. Harley was pressed to every aspect of Peter there was and Peter was curled tighty back around him. 

Sleeping had been really hard. Knowing that he was leaving Peter in the morning.. He couldn’t do it. He just pressed his face to Peter’s neck and breathed him in the whole night. There was nothing more than them, together, waiting for dawn to come, knowing that when it did it meant this was over. 

Harley shut his eyes, “I don’t want to go back to a life without you.”   
  
“You still have me,” Peter murmured slowly, “Maybe not right next to you but I’m always in your heart. I can never leave that.”   
  
“I know you can’t.”   
  
They stayed that way for a few more minutes before they began to detangle. He pressed a hand to his stubbly chin and looked at his boyfriend. Peter was looking at him. He felt a moment of love and longing brush into them, and just as quick as it came it changed into sadness. Want and Sadness and grief for what they were losing. 

Peter sat up, kissing the bottom of his jaw, “Breath.”   
  
“I don’t know how too without you anymore,” He caught Peter’s eyes and tried not to show how destroyed he was, “I can’t without you.”   
  
“Yes, you can.” Peter’s voice was firm, and his hands traced along the edges of Harley’s beard, “I know you can because you’re so much stronger than I am. I know you can because you’re beautiful, and kind, and wonderful, and you’ll remember me when you get home.”   
  
“Don’t make me leave.”   
  
“You have too.”   
  
Silence passed between them again, and this time Harley leaned forward to brush their lips together. He wasn’t going to let the sadness consume them on his last day. When he pulled back he cleared his throat, blinking to meet his boyfriends eyes, “Can you help me shave my beard?”   
  
“It's hardly a beard,” Peter whispered back, but he stood and stretched a hand to Harley, “Yes. I will.”    
  
They moved together. Almost like they were dancing. Peter, to grab the shaving cream and the straight razor that he would use to shave. Harley, to follow his steps but stop at a chair, melting into the hard wood and breathing out. There was a hand mirror that he had found somewhere once. They had set it up on the desk like it was a real mirror. Like this was a real bedroom. Like this was a real home.

Peter stepped forward, kissing his hair, “Are you sure you want me to do it?”   
  
“I’d cut myself on the razor,” He tilted his head towards Peter, “I’m not used to those kinds.”   
  
“Right. Future boy with your future razors.”   
  
“Future boy with my future razors,” He smiled weakly.

They felt silent after that. Peter’s warm thick fingers fell on his throat and Harley let his eyes close, sinking into the feeling of the shaving cream being lathered. His boyfriends hands were strong, but what got Harley was how warm they were. Against all the cold of the winter, he had expected his hands to be cold. He had braced for cold. He got warm. He got soft. He got loving. 

He let Peter mold him, let Peter tilt his neck and his head, guiding him where to go, what to do. He felt limp and strengthless in his hot hands. He knew, from the way his skin prickled, that Peter was looking at him. He imagined his eyes, honey brown and sad but wanting. Knowing that Harley trusted him more than he trusted anything in the world. 

He almost tensed at the cold of the metal blade but he kept himself lax. He flicked his eyes open and was met with the sight of Peter’s furrowed brow as he focused on the soft part of Harley’s neck. His hand was warm against the side as the cold metal slowly dragged against his skin. 

Harley was completely vulnerable in Peter’s hands. 

Harley loved being vulnerable in Peter’s hands. 

Something about the way that Peter’s hand stayed stationed on his neck, whether the side or the base of his neck made Harley feel like he was loved. Like he could trust Peter with his life. And he was. He was trusting Peter with his life. He’d read horror stories about shaving razors like this, but Peter was being so delicate. 

Peter was worshiping his skin with a cool metal blade and Harley was almost trembling with affection. The warm hand gripped the base of his hair- it was getting long, he mused silently- and pulled his head back, guiding it into a position that Peter could work with. He let a soft sigh pass through his lips and closed his eyes. 

This was heaven. Him, and Peter, and this moment was heaven. There was nothing more intimate than a vulnerability that there were no words on and this was the most vulnerable Harley had ever been. He wasn't sharp edges or rocky words or rough hands. He was Peter Parker’s boyfriend who trusted Peter with every single part of himself. 

The scrapping blade on his neck just reminded him of that. 

The sensation of Peter’s hand forcing his head tilted back just reminded him of that. 

The feeling of absolute trust just reminded him of that. 

Finally, after a few moments, his boyfriend pulled the blade away, using a wet cloth that Harley hadn’t seen him grab to gently wipe away the access. His eyes fluttered open to meet Peters with a soft look. 

Peter was looking back at him like a starving man. Like a beast that was barley contained. His soft, gentle Peter, with trembling hands and fiery eyes, that just wanted to love and be loved. His strong, rough Peter with a firm grip and a jerky voice, that just wanted to be there. 

Harley felt like the stars under his gaze. 

No words had to pass between them before Peter captured his lips in a gentle kiss. He tasted like toothpaste and smelled like sleep, but his mouth was warm. Harley wondered if any other person could ever be kissed the way Peter kissed him- because Peter kissed him like he was made to devour. As though his lips were made for sin but prayed in soft whispers anyway. Peter kissed him like an angel of the night. 

He was memorizing this feeling. The feeling of his lips, dragging across his cheek as his hot breath ghosted across his skin. The feeling of his own hand tracing small patterns on Peter’s back. The feeling of his heart beating out of his chest as Peter gripped him firmly. 

Harley wasn’t made to be loved. 

He had known that since he was a little boy. He was smarter than the rest of the world and his mind worked too fast to relax and his mouth worked even faster. He wasn’t made to be loved. He was made for science. For cruelty. For the cold. He was made to show the world that progress was good. He wasn't made to be loved. 

Peter made him think differently. 

His hands cupped Harley’s face like it was a precious gemstone that most would kill to see. His eyes scanned over every piece of skin like it was an invigorating word. His mouth was leaving hot marks under Harley’s ear and all he could do was wonder; is this how love felt? This sensation of his heart in his throat? This feeling of complete and total admiration? This overwhelming need to be closer, closer,  _ closer?  _ This want to not miss anything? 

He knew his answer in the way he was memorizing how Peter’s fingers dragged against his skin. He knew his answer in the way that Peter gently guided his shirt off, taking control and dipping his fingers into the hollows of his rib cage like the skin there was magic. He knew his answer in how Peter laid him down like he was an elegant piece of silk made to be worshiped. 

He wasn't made to be loved, but Peter Parker loved him anyway. 

His own hands had discarded Peter’s shirt, and he now focused himself on memorizing what was there. He had a pronounced sort of muscle that Harley never would have noticed for someone so gentle. Taking the liberty of knowing this was the man he would love forever, he found it in himself to trace over the curve of Peter’s shoulder and the flex of his neck. He was cataloging the small marks on his skin. 

Peter had a scar on his left index finger that made the pad of his finger rise a little. Peter had a bullet wound in his shoulder that had healed over. Peter had a freckle underneath his right pec. All the tiny things that wove Peter’s story into reality from the breaths of a love goddess. All the small markings that made Harley want to never let go of his hands. 

He was slowly working his way down Halrey’s body, worshiping the skin of his chest much to Harley's pleasure. But Harley wasn’t focusing on his own pleasure as much as he was focusing on how the curls in Peter’s hair fell over his forehead. How soft his hair was in Harleys fingers. He bit back a gasp when Peter’s teeth scraped his hip bone, but he pulled his boyfriend up to study his face. 

The shape of Peter’s lips was the shape of the gates to heaven. They breathed each other in for a moment, cast in a spell of love and relaxation. The air between them was non-existent as they pressed into each other's skin, fitting together like a sculpture made from marble and love. 

He had always felt like a sculpture. Out of place and cold. But Peter was so very warm, and his touch was so very real, and he was so very soft, and if Harley was a sculpture then Peter was Pygmalion because his love had brought Harley to life. 

His fingers dipped into the waistband of Harley’s underwear as Harley was studying the shade of his eyes. Peter’s voice was soft and breathless and wanting and so so so loving, “May I?”   
  
“You first,” He whispered back, breathing him in, “I want to look at you first.”

Peter nodded and leaned back. He took the second to study all of Peter’s body, watching the curve of his shoulders flex, and the length of his arm extend, and the stretch of his torso as he stripped himself of his remanding clothes. 

Peter Parker was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He leaned forward, tracing the thin lines of his abs. Peter shuddered under his touch, and he let himself explore. His boyfriend shifted and Harley’s eyes were drawn to where Peter’s thigh met his hips and the small freckles that resided there. He leant down, kissing them, feather light and worshiping. Peter gasped softly, and he found himself relishing the sound. The hitches in Peter’s breath. The love in his eyes. 

Harley took Peter in his mouth just to watch those perfect brown eyes flutter shut in pleasure. Memorizing the way his lashes brushed against the height of his cheekbones as he opened his mouth in bliss. The way that Peter’s face shifted into one of happiness. 

Peter’s hand slipped into his hair, and all thoughts were erased except for Peter. Peter’s warm fingers tugging at his hair. Peter’s arms and the way they flexed. Peter’s shoulders and the way they stretched. Peter. All of Peter. 

Taking him in deeper, he closed his eyes and mapped Peter’s body with his hands. His scarred knees. The cut where his thigh and knee met where he had gotten stabbed once. The thick muscle’s of his thighs where he knew there to be light, faded freckles. He traced over the skin that he knew held a birthmark in the shape of florida. Small and tiny but there. Something Harley had memorized. Something that was just for them.

He had never known love like this before. If love was in knowing and knowledge he had love. But it wasn’t that. It was the way Peter was whispering his name, breathless and voice weak, pleading for the sweetness that he knew was to follow. It was the way Peter’s eyes slowly flicked open and stared down at Harley like it was a sight he never wanted to miss. It was Harley’s first time, and it was perfect. 

Slowly, he found a rhythm and he fell into love with the feeling of pleasing Peter. He was more than just devoted to Peter- no he was devoted to how Peter felt. He was devoted to making him feel loved. There was no jerkiness, just the feeling that he was doing something right as Peter’s hands twisted in his hair. 

“Baby- baby, wait,” Peter gasped out, voice worshipping, “C’mere- I need to kiss you- I want-”   
  
“I know what you want,” He obliged his boyfriend, kissing along the curve of Peter’s jaw, “What you want you can have. Anything you want you can have.”    
  
And just like that Peter was laying him on the bed like he was the most precious item in the world. Like he was worth worshiping. Like he was love come to life. Not even aphrodite herself had been worshiped like Peter loved him. Looking into Peter’s eyes he knew that he was more beautiful and loved than any person in the world right now from Peter’s view. 

Once again, Peter was focused on his pleasure. He had slipped off Harley’s underwear, but he wasn’t paying attention to the love he was receiving. No, he let himself trace the line of Peter’s lips with his thumb. He allowed himself to give into the urge to kiss him once more as they fell into each other again. 

Peter’s hands were large and warm against the flesh of his thighs. He met his eyes and breathed, “Are you sure?”   
  
And Harley was sure. Harley was more sure about this than he was that the sun would set every day and rise every day. Harley was more sure that he wanted Peter to make love to him than he was sure that the moon pulled in the tide. Harley was more sure that he loved Peter than he was sure that he existed. But he couldn’t explain all of that, so he whispered out instead, “Yes. I’m sure.”   
  
He didn’t need to say all his love because Peter understood. Harley saw it in his eyes. Saw his understanding flash like lightning, and suddenly those honey browns were flooded with love. Peter spent his time kissing over his face as he reached for something away from them. 

Peter had a freckle under his left eye, Harley found himself marveling as Peter’s fingers slipped into him. He gasped something he knew Peter would find pretty, and focused himself on memorizing the shape of Peter’s body. Memorizing the feelings that this was. Memorizing the love that he had. 

He struggled to keep his eyes open as Peter’s fingers crooked just right, but he couldn’t look away from this vision. This was Peter, raw and exposed, and so much more beautiful than anything that Harley had ever seen. His eyes were focused on where he was slipping another finger into Harley, and it made the colors in it pop. 

Hazel. Honey. Brown. Chocolate. How could eyes have that many shades? How could anyone capture how loving and wanting they were? How could anything be as perfect as Peter Parker? 

His arm was flexing and Harley found himself drawn to the muscle there. He reached his hand to trace over the skin, feeling it shift under his palm. He gasped out a small moan as Peter found something  _ good _ within him, and he was delighted to see how Peter’s face lit up. It was more than joy or happiness. It was pleasure at knowing that Harley felt good.

It was like the two of them had been made to love one another. 

He fell into the feeling of Peter’s fingers, and his hands found the back of Peter’s neck, playing with the curls on the nape of it. He loved the texture of Peter’s hair, how soft it was. How it fit so easily into his hands. How he wanted to tug and pull and see the bliss on Peter’s face that came with that. Slowly, he pulled his fingers out and Harley held his breath. 

“We can stop,” Peter kissed his brow, “I know this is hard for you. We can stop.”   
  
“No,” His voice was shaking, “I want to be with someone I love. I want you to be my first. Please.”   
  
He found himself memorizing the way Peter spoke, “You’re trembling.”   
  
“I’m overwhelmed,” Peter’s lips formed words like they were meant for nothing more than soft I love you’s and prayers, and his breath hitched with how his teeth chewed on his bottom lip, “I’ve never been loved like this before.”   
  
“I’ve loved you like this always.”   
  
Harley kissed him slowly and pulled away to breath him in, “That's why I want this. You’re the only man I trust with this. The only person I’ll ever love. I- I’m ready, Peter.”   
  
He didn’t say that he was scared of losing Peter. He didn’t have too either. Peter saw it in his eyes, just like he saw how happy Harley was to be doing this with him. Peter saw in his trembling body something beautiful, and wanting and eager. Peter saw him for who he was. 

Harley never believed in true love; but maybe that was because no one had ever shown him he was worth being loved before. No one had ever let him fall apart with the promise of helping him learn how to build again. No one had ever kissed all his scars and whispered that he was beautiful. No one had ever let him feel pleasure like he was made to be worshiped. 

He found that true love was in Peter. 

True love was how Peter fucked into him- less like a fucking and more like a slow, soft, tedious inching foreward. True love was how painless it felt when he was all the way in. True love was how Peter’s lips ghosted his jaw, whispering sweet things that Harley couldn’t hear over the sound of his and Peter’s heartbeats syncing in his ears. True love was how Peter’s fingers- and all their rough scars and calluses- were gripping his hip like a lifeline. True love was how he felt so loved that he could cry. 

And he did cry. He cried, as a laugh bubbled up with him, and all the sounds that came into him were met with a moan. Peter was staring at him in awe as he started to move, mouthing against his neck and jaw and anywhere he could get access too. 

Harley clutched at Peter’s back, and his hands found Peter's hair again, guiding his face away from his neck, and they kissed. Maybe there was such a thing as Perfect kisses, and Harley found that this was the most perfect kiss the world had ever known. Peter’s teeth caught on his lips and Harley swallowed Peter’s moan and it was messy as they breathed life and love into each other's mouths but it was perfect. It was the most perfect kiss in the world. 

Harley found himself studying the crinkle in Peter’s brow, as his face grew euphoric with pleasure. That small crinkle just in between his eyebrows that Harley had found himself cataloging as important because it meant Peter was happy. He leaned up, his body taught with pleasure, and kissed it, as Peter gently bucked into him again. 

His hands were set on studying how Peter’s shoulders moved underneath the skin. Those strong powerful shoulders that were made to swing on webs and pull himself up. The strength that they held. The gentleness they promised. His nails dug into them slightly as he cried out softly. 

For his part, Peter seemed to be studying him just as much. The hands that had been glued to his hips mere seconds ago now found all the lines and marking of his chest. The soft part of his gut- the underside of his rib cage- the dimple in his hip- the edges of his hip bone.

Somewhere, in the back of Harley’s mind he knew that this was the last morning he was ever going to have with Peter. That it was cold and frozen and the worst winter in the world. But here, in the present, as Peter's warm hands were trailing over his skin and making him feel star struck, he couldn’t find it in himself to care. 

All that mattered was them. All that mattered was Peter's lips on his, and Peter making love to him, and Peters hands on him, and Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. Peter. 

Harley came saying Peter’s name. Peter’s mouth on his and his hands coming to rest on the side of his throat and how good he felt as Peter’s hips stuttered forward. 

He pulled away to pant into the air as Peter kept going, eyes soft and loving as he looked at Harley’s spent and shaking form. All Harley could think was how beautiful Peter’s lashes were. The curve of Peter’s jaw. The shadows on his hip bones. The taste of his skin. 

All of the little tiny details that made Peter, Peter. 

He watched with amazed eyes as Peter’s hips jerked and his mouth opened in pleasure and his eyes grew wet with tears of rapture and euphoria. And despite the cold air beyond their small tent made for them Harley was filled with warmth. 

Maybe it wasn’t warmth. Maybe it was love. Maybe it was a feeling that he would never be able to forget as Peter pressed his face to Harley's shoulder and bit hard, cumming even harder. Maybe it was the feeling of tugging Peter’s hair. Maybe it was how they were breathing each other in, sticky and covered in each other but so so at peace. There was no maybe. It was love. 

Slowly, Peter pulled out, and Harley curled around him with a trembling body, “I love you.”   
  
He hadn’t meant for his voice to come out so weak or so wet. He definitely hadn’t meant for it to be said with such need and longing. 

“Oh baby,” Peter’s voice was rough but his eyes were so so gentle and all Harley wanted to do was kiss him again, “I love you too.”   
  
And they stayed there, tangled in each other and desperately in love, for what felt like hours. 

By the time they stepped out of the tent, it was midday. The sun was shining brighter than any light Harley had ever seen against the white snow, and every single one of the Avengers were standing in a huddle with a quiet demeanor about him. He sank into Peter’s side, staying still for a moment.   
  
“Breath, love,” Peter whispered, but Harley knew that he wasn’t okay right now either, “It’ll be okay.”   
  
“No- I don’t think it will.”   
  
Slowly they both moved forward and the Avengers turned to him. Bucky stepped forward, offering a small smile, “So were the forties as bad as you thought they were going to be?”

“No,” He offered a small smile back, curling closer to Peter, “No. I loved my time here.”   
  
“We’re gonna miss you kid,” Howard moved forward and clapped his shoulder, “You were a great addition to the team.”    
  
Harley waited till he pulled back to speak, “Thank you. I learnt a lot from all of you.”   
  
One by one, the Avengers came forward to say their goodbyes. One by one, Harley said goodbye to each and every single one of them. He slowly found his footing in the sadness, but he didn’t move himself from where he was pressed to Peter’s side. 

He couldn’t believe this was the end. 

In a week from now, his mind told him, Bucky Barnes would be killed on a mission against Hydra. Two days after that Peter and Steve would die in a plane crash. In a week from now, the boy he loved would die. In a week from now, the world itself would change forever when it loses the last super soldiers in the universe. 

But this wasn’t a week from now. This was right here, right now. He blinked back some tears and kissed Peter’s shoulders as Peggy moved forward. This was the goodbye he was going to hate the most. 

He moved away from Peter to take Peggy in a very tight hug, and whispered into her shoulder quietly, “You will find love again.”   
  
“Thank you,” she responded, hugging him back twice as hard, “Thank you.”   
  
“Don’t thank me. I’m sorry.”   
  
She pulled back first and went into the arms of her boys, both of which kissed her on the head. He moved towards Peter and pulled him into a soft, sweet, kiss. 

This was it. 

“I have to go now,” his voice was trembling, “I’ll stay if you ask.”   
  
Peter pulled back to cup his face, looking into his eyes, “I can’t ask that of you.”   
  
“I know.” He leaned forward and kissed Peter again. 

It was going to be their last kiss, and he wanted to savor it. He had spent the entire morning memorizing every detail about Peter and he would spend every day after this thinking of him. Harley was always going to remember his Peter. 

Slowly he moved away from Peter and towards the device. His entire body was trembling as he walked away. This was it. This was the last time he would see Peter, ever. This was the end. 

He turned over his shoulder, and studied Peter through his tears, “I love you, Peter Parker.”

And with that he pressed a button and disappeared in a flash. 

  
  


New York City, 2032

  
  


Harley blinked awake with a flash of light, pressing his hand to his husband's chest, groaning, “Please tell me you didn’t open the blinds on us.”   
  
“Yes, baby, I did,” Peter grinned down at him, kissing his hair, “You know we have to get up before Benny does.”   
  
“Benny can  _ sleep _ like the rest of us.” 

“Benny takes after  _ me,”  _ Peter’s grin grew wider, “So he’s an early bird.”   
  
Harley just gently slapped Peter’s chest and huffed, “You’re a menace.”   
  
“Ah, so Jameson has called me.”   
  
“I think he just hates you because his grandparents were  _ definitely _ Nazi’s.”   
  
“You know? I think you’re right.”   
  
“I’m always right,” He leaned up and kissed Peter softly, grinning, “By the way love… happy anniversary.”   
  
Peter laughed into the kiss, and his hands moved to card through Harley’s hair, “I still don’t think today should be our anniversary. I still think we should’ve made our anniversary the day you came back to my arms.”   
  
“This is the day we got married,” Harley sighed, because they really had to stop having this conversation, “Meaning this is the day we celebrate our anniversary on- need I remind you of our wedding?”   
  
“You can remind me of our wedding night.” Peter’s eyebrows were waggling at him, and Harley threw his head back laughing with the action. His husband took the moment to kiss at his neck, “You up for a round?”   
  
Halrey pulled away and kissed him again, “As much as I would love to suck you off right now, I know for a fact that Benny will be coming to jump on us any minute.” 

“Rats,” Peter didn’t sound disappointed at all, “Why did we have kids again?”   
  
“Because we wanted a mini-me, like from those SpaceBalls movies you like so much.”   
  
“They’re the only valid Star Wars spoof!”   
  
“So you’ve said, love,” He pulled away to stretch his arms and sit up, “So you’ve said.”   
  
Peter didn’t respond for a second. When Harley moved to look at him, Peter was staring at him with soft eyes, like he couldn’t believe this was the life they had gotten. Harley knew that's exactly what he was thinking because he himself thought the same thing almost constantly. 

When he had returned to New York, he had immediately been scooped up by Peter’s arms and kissed like he was air to a drowning man. Of course he had gone into almost shock at the realization that his boyfriend was in the future, but the two of them found each other again easily. 

And here they were thirteen years after he had come back, married, with a son, and a little girl on the way. Their surrogate this time was a lovely woman from Ohio who wanted to give them their dream of two kids since she had four of her own. Benny was ecstatic to be a brother and Peter was ecstatic to have a baby girl in their arms. Harley was just as joyful. 

Life was good, like this. Harley was technically an engineer for Stark Industries, but because he could work from home, he was able to be a stay at home dad on the side, and spend every little moment with Benny. Peter had stayed true to himself and become a local journalist who just also happened to be a superhero on the side. Not that anyone but them knew it. As far as the public knew, Peter Parker was  _ very  _ upset that the  _ menace  _ Spider-Man had stolen his suit and modified himself to have the same powers when he himself had given all that up to live a normal life like he wanted. 

It still made both of them laugh whenever articles Peter wrote hit the stands about how even if Spider-Man was doing good, he was totally guilty of copyright infringement and that the suit itself should be in a museum. 

Peter was an amazing father too. Benny took after him in so many ways and Peter was enamored with him. Perhaps, that was Harley's favorite thing about their life- just how domestic it was. 

He smiled at his husband, shifting so they were both laying down again, “Happy Anniversary, love.”   
  
“Happy anniversary, Angel.”   
  
They slowly leaned into kiss, just as a small weight came flying at their chests, “Daddy! Papa!” 

“Oof,” He wheezed, hand coming to support the child that was not sitting firmly between his dads, “Benny, what did we say about jumping on us?”   
  
“But Papa,” His son whined, flashing his big brown doe eyes as Harley, “Uncle Jamie and Uncle Stevie are coming over!”   
  
Peter chuckled softly, “Yes, you keep reminding us, sweetheart.”   
  
“And they're bringing sir Jason the third!” Their son pouted hard, puppy dog eyes working harder, “And we can pet him! And get one just like him! And-”   
  
“Benny, baby,” Harley sat up to kiss his son’s forehead, “We can get a dog after your sister comes and turns three. Alright?”   
  
“But I want one now!”    


He sent his husband a pleading look, but Peter just grinned, “Well.. I don’t think we can get one now but you know what I heard?”   
  
“What’d you heard?”   
  
“I heard that Flynn is getting a dog soon,” Peter’s smile widened at Benny’s gasp, “And that he’d be happy to let you come over whenever you want- if your Uncles Flash and Harry are okay with it.”

Benny squealed, throwing his arms around Peter, “Yes! I love Uncle Flash and Uncle Harry!! I love Flynn too! I’m gonna love their dog! And when Macy May comes she’ll love the dog too! Oh my gosh!”    
  
“They all love you very much too,” Harley smiled at the scene, “And no doubt when Macy gets old enough to play she’ll wanna play with you all the time.”

“Really?” Benny unwound himself from Peter and moved to curl closer to his Papa, “You think she’ll like me?”   
  
He scooped his son up in his arms and kissed his head, “Oh baby, I think you two are gonna be the best of friends like me and your aunt Abbie are.”   
  
Benny giggled, and started babbling about something or another, while Peter and Harley exchanged fond looks over his head.

Their son was very much a Papa’s boy, much to both of their amusements. He looked like Peter- he had the same curls, and brown eyes and nose- and he had even inherited powers from the spider bite. Despite the similarities between the two of them, almost all of Benny’s mannerisms had been picked up from Harley. Inspite of the ever popular puppy eyes that his husband and his son liked to torture him with, Benny liked to act like his Papa. 

It was a fact that made both him and Peter insanely happy. 

His husband leaned over and kissed his cheek, “Well, kiddo, as amazing as a fire storm sounds, we gotta get ready before we can look it up.”    
  
“Blegh,” Benny made a face, “Don’t kiss Papa!”   
  
Peter just laughed and leaned to kiss Benny’s forehead, “I’m always gonna kiss your papa.”

Benny stuck his tongue out at his dad and snuggled into his Papa’s side. Peter just grinned and booped his nose, then looked up to Harley, looking to see what he wanted to do. He offered a small smile, and Harley smiled back blindingly. He loved his family so much his heart could burst. 

"C'mon itsy bitsy," He scooped up his son and kissed all over his face, "We're gonna make your daddy pancakes so he doesn't set fire to the kitchen again."

“I only set fire to the kitchen once!” Peter squawked, moving to scoop up both his husband and son as his son giggled, “It was a one time thing!”    
  
Benny snorted as his dad walked his family to the kitchen, “No it wasn’t! We blew up the microwave last week.”   
  
“Benny!”    
  
“I’m sorry, what?” He raised a brow and looked peter in the eyes, “You blew up the microwave?”   
  
“Yep,” Benny grinned like Peter, “Me and daddy both!”    
  
“Oh, Peter parker, you’re in so much trouble!”    
  
His husband just smiled sheepishly and set Harley down on a counter. Benny squirmed out of his dad's lap and jumped onto the floor, beginning to pull out all the bowls, he waddled to the fridge to try to reach the ingredients. Harley watched as Peter moved over to help him and sighed lovingly. 

This was his family. 

This was the family he had made in a time for war and followed him to the future. 

This was his family, and Harley loved them more than anything. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to Sarah who beta'd this chapter, and so much to Ava who makes fun of me for spelling errors 
> 
> Please drop a comment down bellow or talk to me @ Peachy-Keener on tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> dont be too harsh please
> 
> teall me what you think
> 
> hit me up at Peachy-Keener on tumblr


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